Sting, a well-behaved Englishman at the Paléo Festival...

The English singer and bassist gave a polished concert at the Nyon festival on Wednesday evening, a bit too dull for the immensity of the Main Stage.

About fifteen minutes before the start of his concert, a welcome rain fell on the Asse plain. But instead of the potentially expected thunderstorm, it was only a light, barely refreshing drizzle that quickly dissipated. When Sting politely stepped onto the Paléo Festival's Main Stage and began his set with "Message in a Bottle," taken from the second of the five albums he released with The Police between 1978 and 1983, the air was dry. The British musician continued with Englishman in New York (his solo hit from the late 1980s), Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic (The Police, 1981) and If You Love Somebody Set Them Free (the first single from his first solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, 1985).

While this opening is perfect in its choice of songs, we are unfortunately quickly confronted with the paradox that Sting's concerts often have. Despite what he represents in the history of music, despite the quality of his writing, a polite boredom quickly sets in. Red and blue striped T-shirt, tight black pants and boots, Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, 70 years old, is still imposingly classy, firmly gripping his Fender bass, which, for its part, seems to be showing its age. Surrounded by five musicians and two backing singers, he does the job, but little more. From The Bridge, his dispensable last album released last year, If It's Love and Rushing Water are hardly convincing and introduce a long, soft underbelly.

The songs follow one another, Sting and his musicians stretching them out as they wish, slowing down the tempo where open-air festival concerts require something more sustained. While a reinterpretation of Wrapped Around Your Finger leaves one perplexed, a sluggish version of Roxanne as an encore creates the same impression of waste. Although he tries to get the audience to sing along, Sting isn't cut out for crowds of tens of thousands. Three years ago, the intimacy of the Stravinski Auditorium, as part of Montreux Jazz, would have suited him better. We dream of seeing him one day in a jazz club.

Even if So Lonely later sees the audience awaken somewhat, the Wallsend native's propensity to prefer reggae nonchalance to rock aggression is perplexing. Alongside him, guitarists Dominic and Rufus Miller, a father and son, also remain a little too polite, while young drummer Zach Jones is far too diligent, hammering out the rhythm more than embracing it. As the concert ends with an intimate version of Fragile, we feel like we've already forgotten him.

(c) Le Temps by Stéphane Gobbo

Sting, the wiry stoic...

The Englishman from New York showed in Nyon that he and his songs have aged well. Only his former inner conflict is missing – painfully so.

And there he strides across the stage, with a firm step, like a construction worker in heavy boots across a construction site. Around his neck is his clunky tool: the 1954 Fender P-Bass. The instrument looks a bit worn, not so the player: Sting turned 70 last fall, so he's older than his bass. But he's in excellent shape. In his (horizontal!) red-and-black striped T-shirt, he looks fantastic, athletic, wiry. Someone has aged very, very well.

The slopes in front of the main stage in Nyon are packed with people; it's just before midnight, rain threatens, but then it doesn't come. And almost everyone has come to the Paléo Festival today just for this concert. Of course, a legend is playing, "a monument," as one audience member puts it. People like that. Especially when they can sing along so beautifully. And they can. Actually, from the first to the last song, the concert is a real sing-along experience. The entire full 90 minutes, from "Message in a Bottle" to "Englishman in New York" to the opulent and slightly overlong "Roxanne" and the delicate, almost slightly too short "Fragile" at the very end.

Nyon is a stop on Sting's world tour, which originally began as a tour for his best-of album "My Songs" with re-recordings of the 2019 classics and was then abruptly interrupted by the pandemic. He has since released a new album called "The Bridge." He has included half a dozen of these new songs on his setlist. Otherwise, the tour simply continues. So you get all of Sting – including his The Police hits from back in the day.

It takes a while for the spark to ignite in Nyon. At the beginning, everything sounds a bit disjointed; it's almost as if you're sitting in a noisy bar, and Sting can only be heard on an old jukebox. But it doesn't last long. By the Police classic "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," the third or fourth song, Sting seems to be fully present. From then on, the concert is compact and captivating, a well-oiled, powerful hit machine.

The crazy thing about Sting, and this is evident again in Nyon, is that he never seems to be out of touch with the times. His songs, strangely enough, fit the present. It's hard to explain why this is so. His latest album, "The Bridge," isn't a shallow echo from another era, even though it is a typical Sting album. The pop songs are still multifaceted and playful (if sometimes a bit sweet), enriched with jazz and reggae. And the themes are still mostly dark, but age-appropriate. As the title suggests, most of the songs deal with transitions, with people who find themselves between life and death, between health and illness, between the present and the future.

In several interviews, Sting, who has been committed to preserving the Brazilian rainforest since the 1980s, recently said: "Each of us is looking for the bridge to the future. The bridge to where we can feel safer and happier." In short: Sting ages well, and so does his music.

Perhaps that's because his pop has always been richer, and Sting is a first-class musician with a broad background. The son of a Newcastle milkman, he was just seven when he received his first classical guitar, a Spanish acoustic model. At school, he picked up the double bass and played in jazz bands and jazz-rock formations. His first rock band was the trio The Police. That was in 1977, and the rest is rock history. Their debut album, "Outlandos d'Amour," became a worldwide success—with eternal hits like "Roxanne," "So Lonely," and "Can't Stand Losing You." In 1983, The Police disbanded, and Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, Sting's real name, successfully launched a solo career that continues to this day.

Ah, that voice!

And it was he who composed all of those Police global hits. Many of his songs deal with melancholy, mania, love madness, and inner conflict. "I consider myself the spokesperson for alienation and loneliness," he once said. And you could always hear that in his voice. Oh, that voice, it was like tissue paper, always shy and powerful at the same time. Yes, tender, youthful, and slightly husky, as if he had caught a cold on a solitary walk through wintry Central Park and had been drinking tea with honey and a dash of gin for three days.

Of course, that's no longer the case today. The longings and wounds of love are no longer the same at 70. Therefore, he can certainly be forgiven for still singing beautifully and penetratingly in Nyon, but the songs no longer manage to tear wounds of longing into the souls of his listeners.

And yet it's a good concert; the longer it lasts, the more urgent Sting's performance becomes, the more fun he has. Especially when his voice almost cracks, as in "Desert Rose" or "Walking on the Moon," the old inner conflict shines through once again. The band plays energetically and lucidly. Sting manages to create a great deal of tension with a skilful blend of intensity and restraint. Here is a master at work who knows how to create contrasts – without sensationalism.

But what he is and remains is the stoic bassist who likes to maintain control and plays his great songs with great power, yet also with great control. He recently put it this way in a radio interview: "The bassist is in the ideal position. He's the centre. McCartney did the same thing with the Beatles, and Jack Bruce with Cream. It's about being the leader – in a charming, stoic, but powerful and determined way."

That's exactly what this Sting best-of concert was like: charming, powerful, determined – and a bit stoic.

(c) Tages Anzeiger by Martin Burkhalter