57th & 9th: World Tour

Rock 'n' Roll with soap bubbles...

At the opening of the Film Nights on the Elbe, Sting gets pretty loud, but also sentimental.

It can't be a midlife crisis; the man is 65 after all. But something has happened to Sting. After years of musical experimentation with jazz, classical music, or lute music from Shakespeare's time, recorded at his vineyard in Tuscany, he's now making honest, straightforward rock again. Just like he used to with the Police: guitar, bass, drums – let's go. The very first piece Sting plays with his band on Wednesday at the opening of the Film Nights on the Elbe in Dresden is a statement: "Synchronicity II" from the last Police album. A song that makes guitarists first turn up the volume, and then – one, two, three, four – full throttle.

Many old Police hits will be played that evening. Some of the songs on Sting's new studio album, "57th & 9th," also recall the punk-influenced pop rock of the '80s. The fans all respond well. Nearly 7,000 attend the concert, plus thousands more on the Elbe meadows in front. The audience is diverse, just like the music Sting has produced over the past 40 years. Of course, he knows that on an evening like this, the other side also wants to be catered to. So he plays ballads like "Fields of Gold," so that soon the first soap bubbles rise into the sky in the evening light against the silhouette of Florence on the Elbe. Suddenly, an accordion player appears on stage.

It all doesn't quite fit together, and perhaps that's one reason why the spark never quite ignites at this open-air concert. The atmosphere on the banks of the Elbe is a bit like when you put on a best-of Police record at home. You tap your foot a bit, sing along to a verse here and there, it was a great time – but no one wants to lose it. The musical performance, as always with Sting, is absolutely precise and perfect. However, the whole thing lacks a bit of the refinement that Police drummer Stewart Copeland, for example, always brought to the table. Drummer Josh Freese pounds out a hard beat and sometimes sounds like he's in a gym behind his drums. But that's probably how it's supposed to be. Anything but jazz is the motto.

The family atmosphere is further enhanced by the fact that Sting's son, Joe Sumner, is on stage singing background vocals. Guitarist Dominic Miller has also brought his son Rufus, who also plays guitar. This seems to be a new trend at pop concerts anyway. Robbie Williams featured his father on stage during his performance at Dresden's DDV Stadium on Monday. Phil Collins is currently performing a series of live shows with his 15-year-old son Nic on drums. And Foo Fighter Dave Grohl recently brought his eight-year-old daughter on drums.

A climax of the evening is reached when Sting's son, all alone with his guitar, starts singing "Ashes to Ashes," a song by David Bowie, who died last year, and then his father joins the entire band for the song "50 000." Sting wrote it as a tribute to all the rock and pop greats who have died recently. The father-son choreography thus becomes a rather overly symbolic number about the transience of life and the immortality of music. You'd have to be a hardcore rocker not to get a little sentimental.

(c) Sächsische Zeitung by Marcus Thielking