57th & 9th: World Tour

Sting's going small plays big at memorable Pageant concert...

Sting wasted no time getting to know his sold-out audience at the Pageant on Friday night during a stop on his up close and personal “57th & 9th Tour” stop, initially gracing the stage before opening acts the Last Bandoleros and Joe Sumner.

At the top of the evening, Sting walked onto the stage with a few words and a song.

“I’m glad to be here. It’s my first time here. It’s nice to be in this environment,” he said of the Pageant.

He reminded the crowd of what he said was his first-ever visit to St. Louis, a 1979 concert at Mississippi Nights with the Police, which was met with cheers. Then came “Heading South on the Great North Road,” a cut from the new “57th & 9th” album.

“All right, let’s get this show started,” Sting said by way of introducing his son, the aforementioned Sumner, for a brief set followed by another brief set by the Last Bandoleros.

It was a night, as Sumner said, when everyone was in everyone else’s band, including Sting standing in on tambourine and vocals on the Last Bandoleros’ “Where Do You Go?” and Sumner joining them as well.

If there was a star of the night, it wasn’t just Sting. Making the concert one to remember — and it will be remembered — was its locale.

Fans got to see superstar Sting in a setting as intimate (for him) as the Pageant, certainly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity mirroring what he’s doing around the country. Taking the show down this way with Sting playing well below his draw made it an even bigger event than it might have been.

“I can see you. You can see me,” said Sting, who is used to performing in arenas and amphitheaters.

Accompanied by guitarists Dominic Miller and Rufus Miller and drummer Josh Freese, Sumner and the Last Bandoleros, Sting offered a strong mix of songs from his Police repertoire, his solo material and selections from his new album, which for him marks a return to making rock albums.

He opened with “Synchronicity II” and “Spirits in the Material World,” easy hooks when it comes to reeling in an audience, as it did here. The excited, if also occasionally too vocal, crowd basked in the Police favorites.

The hits, naturally, resonated most clearly, including “Shape of My Heart” and “Message in a Bottle.”

“I wrote that song 40 years ago. Its first audience was the dog,” he said of “Message in a Bottle.”

“Englishman in New York” erupted into a funky drum and hand clap explosion, with chants of “Be yourself no matter what they say.” “Desert Rose” maintained its exotic vibrancy. The new “50,000” bled seamlessly into the old “Walking on the Moon.” “Roxanne” delved unexpectedly into Bill Withers’ soul classic “Ain’t No Sunshine.”

Sting revisited his “I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying,” which he recorded both solo and more successfully as a duet with country star Toby Keith. But he reclaimed it in reggae form here.

“I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” “One Fine Day,” “Petrol Head,” “Down, Down, Down” and “Pretty Young Soldier” were among the new songs, none of them unworthy but not all of them necessary.

That’s true in light of the many missing solo hits such as “Fragile,” “Fortress Around Your Heart,” “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free,” “We’ll Be Together” and “When We Dance.”

Trimming a few of the new songs might have allowed more classics in, though Sting wanting to showcase new rock songs after having not released any for over a decade is understandable.

Sumner stepped up to perform Bowie cover “Ashes to Ashes” while his father watched from the side of the stage.

Sting saved “Every Breath You Take” for the encore. And wanting to leave fans with something “quiet and thankful,” he sat with an acoustic guitar and performed “The Empty Chair,” currently up for an Academy Award.

The song is from the documentary, “Jim: The James Foley Story,” about the first American citizen murdered by Islamic State. Sting said he wrote the ballad from the perspective of a father with a child missing during wartime.

(c) St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Kevin C. Johnson

Expect a career-defining show from Sting at the Tabernacle...

Don't arrive late. The 8pm ticket time matters to Sting, because a few minutes past the top of the hour, he'll stride on stage in his Sting uniform of black - snug pants, T-shirt, work boots - chat for a moment or two and share what he calls, "The story of my life around 1975," revealed as the acoustic ballad 'Heading South on the Great North Road'.

He'll cede the stage to his sound-alike son, Joe Sumner, and the melodic pop-rock quartet from San Antonio, the Last Bandoleros, before appearing again to join the harmonies on the band's new single, 'Where Do You Go?' - positioning himself as the world's coolest backup singer. When Sting does this on the Tabernacle stage Monday night for a show that sold out within minutes of its announcement, it will be apparent how much fun he is having, how his choice to perform in (mostly) intimate venues on a tour to support his new "57th and 9th" album has loosened and relaxed him.

Also, the man has no right to look and sound as good as he does at 65. Tantric - whatever apparently works for him.

At a recent performance at the Pageant in St. Louis, a venue Sting told the audience he last played in 1979, he hopscotched through a career set list for 90 invigorating minutes.

He doesn't have such a distant history here since he performed at the Tabernacle in 2013 for a private show during the NCAA Finals; he also returned that summer for a show at Chastain Park Amphitheatre.

Considering the breadth of Sting's catalogue, it would be impossible to do anything other than dent it, which is exactly what he does while leaving out many fan favourites (sorry, no 'Fields of Gold' or 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You' or 'All This Time' this time).

The tale of suburban malaise, 'Synchronicity II', opens the set with all of its tightly coiled tenseness, and the moment Sting unleashes a patented "ee-yo-ohhh-ohh," everyone can breathe a sigh of relief that his Sting-ness is still gloriously intact.

Many songs have been recast with different tempos or tones - a shifty 'Spirits in the Material World', an accelerated 'She's Too Good for Me' and a de-countryfied 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying' among them.

Throughout the set, Sting is backed by guitarist Dominic Miller, his right-hand man for more than 30 years (that's about two decades more than the Police's Andy Summers), as well as Miller's guitarist son Rufus and drummer Josh Freese. The frisky guys in the Last Bandoleros and Sumner crowd a microphone at the back of the stage, a backup team primed for fun.

Sting is undoubtedly rock's Dorian Gray, evidenced not only in his rugged appearance, but in the way he wiggled his hips and allowed his bass lines to dance through the melodies.

Of course, he does have a new album to promote and fortunately, '57th and 9th' is a lute-free zone. 'I Can't Stop Thinking About You' is his catchiest song in decades, while 'Petrol Head' rocks at a full throttle not heard since 1978's 'Outlandos d'Amour'.

Despite the mere six-year, five-album career of the Police (compared to Sting's solo life now at 12 albums and 32 years), fans' adoration of those late-'70s/early-'80s classics will never wane, a sentiment that has likely funded many an Italian villa for the Sumner family.

Sting didn't neglect his past stadium fillers as he rocked in place and held an impossibly long note inside 'Message in a Bottle', led the crowd in a call-and-response during 'Walking on the Moon' and basked in the frenzied lights and shouted chorus of 'So Lonely'.

He appeared to relish returning to his punk roots as he and the band whipped through 'Next to You' and then played to the casual followers with the eerily thumping 'Every Breath You Take'.

Sting will land in Atlanta the day after performing his wrenching Oscar-nominated ballad, 'The Empty Chair', on the Academy Awards telecast.

Another bit of advice - don't leave early, either.

(c) Atlanta Constitution by Melissa Ruggieri