Sting is miraculously not the most boring person of the year...
Location: Dalhalla, Rättvik. Audience: 5483 (new audience record). Length: Just over 105 minutes. Best: “Message in a bottle” and “Fields of gold”. Worst: “Petrol head” and “50,000”. Plus he insists on not playing “I’m so happy I can’t stop crying”. Question: Isn’t it real magic when father Gordon (65 years old) and son Joe (40 years old) sing into the same microphone? They look exactly the same age.
RÄTTVIK. The time for miracles is not over.
It might have taken an open-pit mine in Dalarna.
Sting is actually not paralysingly dull tonight.
I take a marker pen and draw a big cross on the ceiling.
When Sting compresses his song catalogue, he is not only bearable.
He is also good.
The beginning and end of the concert are like a rather tasteful Spotify list of his career.
Everything is in many ways a family affair.
On his right side, Sting has, as usual, guitarist Dominic Miller. His hairstyle hasn't changed in 30 years. His middle leg is also said to be left after the apocalypse. To the left of the tantric maestro's well-trained biceps, Miller's more hard-rocking and dishevelled son Rufus performs in turn, also on guitar. And Sting's son Joe Sumner is in the choir and plays tambourine.
The set does not only consist of several The Police songs. Drummer Josh Freese, who has appeared in various editions of Guns N' Roses and Nine Inch Nails, does a perfect imitation of Stewart Copeland's bushy and long-armed playing style.
The harder and rawer core of the latest album "57th & 9th" shines through in Dalhalla's well-sounding pit. It is at times more of a slushy rehearsal room than an airy spa treatment for the ears.
The court of taste has some complaints, however.
In the middle, Sting plays new songs. I suspect that no one has paid to hear them, but veterans must prove that they still "have it". The problem is that rock stars who have been around so long that their children are on stage rarely "have it" anymore, at least not as songwriters.
Sting is unfortunately no exception.
Didn't we ban unimaginative hockey rock like "Petrol head" and "50,000" several years ago? Or should the riff go to the Supreme Court?
And what is this sad rockabilly fusion with accompanying accordion that appears in “She’s too good for me”?
And was it really necessary for Joe Sumner to do a cover of David Bowie’s “Ashes to ashes”? Especially considering that his singing towards the end – the good Joe takes it from a place a few centimetres below his toes – is reminiscent of the falsettos in German power metal?
But apart from that, the Polar Prize winner is in fine form. Several songs from the years when he was involved in naming albums after, erm, “Zenyatta Mondatta” have aged surprisingly well.
This time, the song material is also performed in a reasonable and focused way.
On closer inspection, it probably deserves two crosses in the ceiling.
(c) Aftonbladet by Markus Larsson
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