Andy Summers - Presidio Theater - 2025.09.27

[thatguy]

Former Police guitarist Andy Summers live at GP Presents in San Francisco
By Jimmy Leslie 
published 12 September 2025

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Andy Summers is one of the most influential guitar players of all time. But he has more than one trick in his bag: Summers is also a fine photographer and a gifted storyteller.
He’ll bring everything to the table for A Cracked Lens + A Missing String when GP Presents helps welcome him to the Presidio Theatre. The show is set to take place on the last Saturday in September out near the Golden Gate Bridge in the City by the Bay.

[/url]Long-time GP Presents followers and avid Summers fans might remember how cool it was when he headlined our Play It Forwardfire relief benefit in 2018 after disaster struck Paradise, California. He played Police hits, including “[url=https://www.guitarplayer.com/guitarists/andy-summers-on-message-in-a-bottle]Message in a Bottle,” on a Telecaster and offered deep insights on everything from his guitar playing to what it was really like to be on and offstage with the notoriously dysfunctional trio.

Summers’ stage presence has only sharpened over time, and he delivers everything with a quick wit while showing candid shots from behind the scenes where no other photographers had access.



Summers has plenty of new things to talk about as well. He's set to launch a new docu-series all about the guitar. Titled Global Guitar, the eight-episode series will focus on the impact that the acoustic and electric guitar have had on the world, as well as Summers’ interactions with different musicians united by their love of the humble stringed instrument.”

The guitarist has also been in the news of late for the lawsuit he and former Police drummer Stewart Copeland have brought against Sting, claiming they are owed more than $2 million in royalties.
Don’t miss this chance to hear all about everything directly from Summers! Come show your appreciation for his amazing career with the Police, Robert Fripp, and Circa Zero as well as his accomplished writing and photography. Again, the show is Saturday, September 27 in San Francisco at the Presidio Theatre.

EVENT DETAILS
GP Presents Andy Summers: A Cracked Lens + A Missing String
Saturday, September 27

6:30 p.m. lobby; 7 p.m. auditorium doors; 7:30 p.m. show

The Presidio Theatre is in the Presidio of San Francisco
99 Moraga Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94129.

We'll be handing out free packs of Martin strings 

A strange show...I wasn't a huge police fan when they were popular, but I've grown to appreciate many of their songs since. I'm much more of a fan of the experimental stuff Summers and Fripp did in the 80's.

this was a "multimedia extravaganza". Two small amps on one side of the stage, a modern looking couch on a rug, with a plant and a couple of animal statues on the other. Summers came out in a purple suit. He is a tiny person. His suit looked a bit baggy, like the Sop Making Sense "Big Suit", but I don't think it was intended. He started right in by grabbing a red Stratocaster and then improvising 3 songs with a delay while some of his photos cycles on the big screen in the background. 

It was all very experimental and if Inwas anPolice fan, I'd probably have been turned off...I can't recall if he talked a bit after that, or went in to Tea in the Sahara. He played to a backing track and just played the vocal melody on guitar interspersed with riffs. He played Thelonius Monk song, and a couple songs he did with a guitarist in Rio. 

he told some road stories and once the audience warmed up, and the pacing evened out, it was funny. He finally played some more Police. For all the Police songs, the screen in the back would show his photos, usually ones that are very "one the nose", pouring tea from a pot to a cup for tea in the Sahara, etc...and would also have the lyrics on screen animated. I was not impressed by the multimedia...

Summers only looked up once while playing guitar during the show, on the very last song, before the encore. Apart from that, he looked at his hands while he was noodling. 

also, he seemed to be winging it. He kept looking off, stage right and asking what am I doing now...

It ended a bit abruptly, again, the pacing seemed a bit off. He got a standing ovation. Then he came back for an encore, even tho quite a few people were getting up to leave. 

His stories were fun. No mention of his work with Robert Fripp, even tho they just put out a box set a few months ago with a new disk of previously unreleased material. No mention of his lawsuit with Sting. In fact, he kept referring to his cohorts by other names, like "Steve". No mention of the new documentary series on the guitar that he's about to put out. 

Some of his photos were pretty good, but quite a lot were just "snapshots", IMHO. I did think it was a cool idea to play your music and foist your art on your audience at the same time. I'll have to see how I can do something like that...

The venue was nice. I've never been there before. I got to SF earlier in the afternoon, so I parked at Palace of Legion Of Honor and hiked around in Lands End for about an hour. I haven't done that in awhile and enjoyed it, but even tho it was under fog, I worked up a pretty good sweat and didn't have a change of clothes for the show...oh well.

I did get a pack of free strings for my acoustic, so that was cool...

--tg

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I also think he looks Harpo Marx to a distracting degree...