Brand New Day: 1999/01

Confidence in every note: Sting's concert in Freiburg...

Even the new sounds familiar. Just 20 years ago, inspired by the punk movement, Sting and his "Polizisten" band were working on a unique sound. Initially, this irritated German audiences so much that parents would have preferred to ban their children from attending such concerts. Today, on the way to the third decade of his career, the solo artist Sting is able to mobilize several generations at once: Children stand harmoniously next to their parents in the well-attended new Freiburg exhibition centre, waiting for the rock star who has experienced everything from punk to hip-hop – and survived it all – and is now the first artist to perform in the new building.

"Good evening," Sting says politely as he comes on stage – modest, unpretentious, yet confident. This is how he comes across throughout the evening. Inner strength, poise, and self-confidence are evident in every note. It's a pleasure to watch him perform. And the approximately 7,000 people, who don't have to push and shove (the hall can hold 10,000), clearly enjoy the atmosphere. The aluminium pipes winding beneath the high corrugated iron roof give the impression of being in the engine room of the luxury liner "Titanic."

But there's no sense of doom and gloom. Quite the opposite. Despite the massive ventilation ducts beneath the exposed roof structure, which certainly don't allow for concert hall acoustics, a pleasant sound permeates the listener - whether at the front of the stage, at the very back of the hall, or on the specially constructed wheelchair-accessible gallery in the middle of the hall. Batteries of loudspeakers suspended from the ceiling spread even the finest nuances to every corner: Sting's clear bass, Jason Rebello's sparkling keyboard runs, or Chris Botti's delicate trumpet solos. Nothing crumbles into the vagueness of the sound, as one would expect from Freiburg's old Stadthalle.

But even that wouldn't have bothered Sting. The fascinating thing about his timelessly classic pieces is that they don't sound at all dusty. The interpretations Sting gives his classics go just so far that, on the one hand, they are pleasingly recognizable for the audience, while, on the other, they convey the impression of creative playfulness with a touch of serene wisdom. Yes, there's even a touch of self-irony when 'Roxanne,' the graying lady from the red-light district, stumbles slightly in the verses, but is back to her old self in the chorus, sweeping the audience into their antiphonal chants.

It is indeed pieces like 'Set Them Free,' 'Every Breath You Take,' or 'Englishman In New York' - perhaps Sting's most beautiful track - that push the more recent works from his current album, Brand New Day, into the background. The selection of songs is carefully calculated: less familiar pieces follow the unmistakable, and yet the new pieces are sometimes so typical that you think you've heard them somewhere from Sting years ago. Sting enjoys this role so much that it seems as if a kind of session atmosphere is created, for example, when guitar, trumpet, bass, and drums join in for improvisation in "Bring On." But the concept of the concert is different, and so the "improvisation" sounds unmistakably perfectly rehearsed down to the last note.

There isn't much more staging than that. Perhaps where Sting sings about "Bourbon Street" with a Mackie Messer intro, above which the moon has been hovering for ages. A few Japanese lanterns rise from the stage. A backdrop as good as the concert: simple yet beautiful at the same time. You'll remember it until the next time Sting, the Sun King of Rockland, is back in Freiburg.

(c) Badische Zeitung by Christian Oster