Sting swung between high class and cheesy karaoke...

It would be a shame to say that Sting still wields the baton in today's pop landscape. Those days are long gone. When he returned last year with his first real pop-rock album in over a decade, it was not met with much more than a shrug.

At one point on the album, he sang - probably as a tribute to David Bowie and Prince - that we tend to imagine that rock stars don't die. That they only fade away. There may be something to that. But with his trim, soon-to-be 66-year-old yoga body, Sting didn't look like someone who intends to die anytime soon in the Royal Arena on Sunday night. On the other hand, he sounds a bit like a musician who is fading away. Like the varnish on his beloved Fender Precision bass.

The entire upper balcony was closed off, and the audience area was reduced. But even if you can't sell all the tickets at the Royal Arena, you can still fade away with honour intact. Sting has always made it look easy, and he did the same at the Royal Arena on Sunday night.
 

Maybe a little too easy. It quickly became clear that this evening was about the music and not much else. No sleazy errands, no grand show. Just highlights from Sting's career with The Police and solo, delivered by himself and his team of excellent but also very workman-like band. Among other things, his 40-year-old son, Joe Sumner in a horrible batik t-shirt, spoke on choir and tambourine.

The start of the concert offered an excellent deluxe dubbed version of »Englishman in New York«, while »Shape Of My Heart« and »Fields Of Gold« impressed in the department of sophisticated adult pop.

It was less convincing when they tried to rock out like on the stiff-legged »Petrol« or »She's Too Good For Me«, which felt like being at one of those hideous exhibition concerts where “skilled” musicians have to show off all their techniques in front of some nerds.

The class difference was palpable when they immediately launched into the Police classic “Message In A Bottle.” Songs from that end of the catalogue generally stood out strongly: “So Lonely” is still a pure energy bomb, while an otherwise worn-out “Roxanne” was given new life midway through with a call-and-response over a white reggae breakdown, a small detour to Bill Withers "Ain't No Sunshine" played like a slamming 80s fuzak, before a heavy funk breakdown sent us back into the Roxanne chorus.

The larger meaning escaped me, but it certainly wasn't predictable.

Elsewhere, one had to put up with Sting's clumsy attempt at world music fusion pop on "Desert Rose". And then I'm close to having to take a star off just because of Sting's son's cover of David Bowie's "Ashes To Ashes". It was simply too flattering and added nothing new to the perfect original. Let Bowie rest in peace. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

The same could be said about Sting's concert activities. Not much new was added to this evening. And what was done couldn't live up to the achievements of the past. On the other hand, he showed that he is still a good musician. And that - after all - counts for something.

(c) Berlingske by Michael Charles Gaunt

57th & 9th tour at Royal Arena...

Sting has struggled for years with how to make his rock career work. The musical genius has for many years taken up music genres from other realms, so that one could often think that he had completely lost touch with the earth. Yet on his latest album “57th & 9th” from 2016, he has managed to dig deep into his own backyard soil and he has recreated a missed The Police sound, which yesterday at Royal Arena helped to unite new and old from his massive hit repertoire.

On the current “57th & 9th Tour” Sting has brought a band consisting of Dominic Miller on guitar, Josh Freese on drums and another guitarist Rufus Miller. As a warm-up we had his son Joe Sumner yesterday. Sting was the first musician to step up, however, and he lovingly and acoustically took on his new Celtic-inspired folk ballad “South of the Great North Road,” and Joe Sumner came on stage and took a verse, after which they shared a verse, and in this relaxed and familiar way a cosy and good-natured evening was set up.

Joe Sumner then had to warm up for his father and continued the fun with the world's oldest cowboy trick, namely chopping his way through some rehearsed Danish phrases “How's it going? Yeah, you don't speak Danish very well, so play some bar music.” We liked that.

You have to say that the apple is right next to the tree, because you immediately hear Sting's crisp sandpaper tenor; the son has great similarities to his father's vocals, especially in the bright range. The boy (41 years old) is a skilled musician, and he managed to fill the stage fairly well, despite the fact that it was just him and his guitar – and then a guitar pedal board playing rhythm guitar. It looked a bit strange when he wasn't playing and there was plenty of guitar. Fortunately, the big screens showed Joe's fast pedal board footwork in a planned manner, so there were no illusions. The style was the well-known Strøget-troubadour-juggler-cardboard-break clown style, and 6 songs was probably what it could pull off.

With a little delay, Sting and the band burst into action with a potent and quite hard-played “Synchronicity II”, which was supposed to convince us that Sting was virile and eternally young. There was a really good bottom line in the sound, bass and drums laid a solid and tight foundation and Sting’s vocals were in place. Classic Andy Summer Fender sound on the guitars and the track was played raw and straight. With the following “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You” it became clear that Sting had set out to remove all unnecessary gravy from the tracks, there were no strings, and all the delicious 90s sound was replaced by the raw The Police sound, the tight and scraped interplay. To emphasize how young we are, the track was played at a breakneck pace, which was a bit of a shame. But it was effective, he had our attention, and the track was followed by “Spirits in the Material World”, after which he slipped into “Englishman in New York”. This was also played directly and intensely in a The Police-like arrangement. Furthermore, Sting & co got away with playing the out dated drum sample interlude in “Englishman in New York” by simply not masking it and just playing the shit with exorbitant British pomp. As he himself sings, be yourself no matter what they say…

After this came “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”, and I have to say that I could use some gravy, because the arrangement became a bit thin, and it didn’t get any better because the well-maintained Briton couldn’t quite handle the highest notes. Rescue came by virtue of a well-planned set, so now it was time for some calm transport numbers, “Mad About You”, “Fields Of Gold” and “Shape Of My Heart”. There was a bit of a kamin lounge over the atmosphere, Sting’s voice got a little massage, and at the same time you got to hear how skilled Sting is at changing expressions; The man is a complete musician and has a feel for everything that happens on stage, and with his proud fox smile he seduced the audience, who probably also needed to slow down a bit.

The best solution of the evening to the transition from the Sting solo arrangements to The Police sound was to let the happy, bouncy and playful Percy Cardona play the accordion over well-known strings and synth motifs, in combination with the guitarists' corresponding arrangement solutions. It usually worked really well and harmoniously, everything was levelled, so nothing stood out and you could feel safe in the knowledge that Sting had considered every phrase.

After a much-needed musical grandpa, “Petrol Head”, “She’s Too Good for Me” and “Message in a Bottle” ensured that we got a slap on the wrist again, the latter number starting a style exercise with call response, which the people love, and which continued throughout the evening. Sting shouted his hoarse voice far and wide into the blue sea of ​​people and everyone answered his SOS, maybe except for a few reviewers.

This reviewer had been looking forward to hearing Sting's version of "Ashes to Ashes", so when Joe Sumner took care of this absolute Bowie classic I was disappointed at first, but I have to say that he did it with respect and dignity. It has become a tradition that you have to have a Bowie song after his death - it's almost a quality stamp - a musical hashtag that you just have to check in on. It also gave a nerve and depth that the efficient, well-oiled Sting machine had perhaps neglected a bit along the way.

After a bunch of The Police songs with a lot of slang, Sting managed to add something exotic to the concert with the well-executed and beautiful "Desert Rose". The band escaped the strange interlude really well and especially with the good duet with guitar and accordion with quarter-based vocals, the band sent us to the skies of the Middle East. For me, one of the highlights.

“Roxanne” with a snippet of “Ain’t No Sunshine” rounded out the main set. I thought it was a strange hybrid and didn’t think it… flew. But “Roxanne” is here to stay, and we participated in a true call response bonanza again and sent Eddie Murphy a loving thought. Sting sang it beautifully in his older voice, and it shouldn’t detract from the fact that he’s a little lacking in the top.

He executed “Next to You”, “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” and “Every Breath You Take” at the speed of an express train. Hold on, there’s no such thing as breaks between numbers. He kept the energy really high, and the roof lifted in one corner, I think, but it was perhaps a bit too yippee, as if he had to catch the metro to Illum to stock up on Danish design, exclusively open to a certain Englishman in Copenhagen. It was all happening in the Royal Arena, but there’s still no reason to ruin your own songs with Amager fades…

After all was said and done, Sting showed some of his best that night with his amazing acoustic guitar playing on “Fragile”. It’s just a beautiful song and brave of him to take the dynamics all the way down at the end. He wanted us to end calmly and thoughtfully and appreciate the time we have, since life is… fragile.

After all was said and done, Sting showed some of his best that night with his amazing acoustic guitar playing on “Fragile”. It’s just a beautiful song and brave of him to take the dynamics down to the end. He wanted us to end calmly and thoughtfully and appreciate the time we have, since life is… fragile.

What can you say about a concert like that? He can do it all, and we’ve heard it all before. It was rock solid, it was cosy and sometimes it was virtuoso and other times virile and insistent. It was... a good concert above average. We got the hits we could wish for; tonight’s setlist was a real gift shop, everyone shouted along to the chorus, this is what we love and Sting’s songs are full of good refrains. Pearls on a string for the satisfied wealthy Sunday Danes in attendance.

When you're racing towards 66, and have already delivered far beyond the evergreens you can hope for as an artist, you'll always be standing in your own shadow, and it can sometimes seem as if it's getting longer and longer, while you yourself are getting smaller and smaller.

But let's face it; Sting has a losing case, it's a lose-lose; "play something old, we don't want to hear your folk music escapades or your classic flirtations" - "now he's just playing The Police songs, there's nothing new under the sun - the man's done" - "Play something with Slayer". And if he started a new political save-the-environment project we'd be standing there singing "sit down, sit down, sit down..."

You might forget that he's really just a musician and not a messiah - and once he might have forgotten it himself. But even Sting couldn't save the rainforests. He knows that now. He can only try to save himself. So we might as well just enjoy his songs and the still fantastic voice, as long as he can deliver his songs himself. It's not the same when songs can only be experienced through other live musicians. Be happy for what is, instead of being angry about what is not.

If you can't quite find the nerve in the legend's rock music, then maybe it's because the rows of chairs have become too tempting and too comfortable and that you are therefore not fully affected by the thundering resonance of the drums and bass in the gonads. Maybe you don't remember that feeling at all? Then look at the happy audience on the floor, go down to them and let yourself be one of many...

(c) Rockzeit by Robert Bergstein Larsen