The magic night of Sting, a gentleman in rock...
Consolidated hits, some Police-era evergreens, more recent tracks: a set list of over 20 songs covering an hounourable 25 year career. Thus Sting met and charmed his huge audience, at Milan's Idropark, show n.276 of his 'Brand New Day' tour, which started in Las Vegas in 1999.
Youthful, perfect in form, Gordon Sumner (this is his real name), fifty years old this October, was less shy and bashful than normal and never tried to blandish his audience with speeches; instead raising enthusiasm with a sequence of tracks such as 'Desert Rose', 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free', 'Every Breath You Take' and 'Roxanne'. People sangs and fell enraptured by 'Englishman in NY' and the other titles from his solo repertoire such as 'Mad About You', 'Fields Of Gold', 'We'll Be Together' and 'Fragile', the final triumphant encore.
The british rockstar opened the show with 'A Thousand Years' in a semi-acoustic version, than he donned his beloved Fender bass and started alternating oldies and recent songs, from the 'BND' album, punctuating here and there with some Police pearls such as 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic', the turning point of the show: the background curtains fall, the light colours change and the atmosphere suddenly turns into rejoicing.
Together with Sting on the Idropark stage, for over one hour and fourty minutes, Manu Katche on drums, who surprisingly duets with the leader rapping in french, Mark ''Kipper'' Eldridge on synth, Dominic Miller on guitar, Jeff Young and Jason Rebello on keyboards. It was an intense and elegant show, opened by prestige support acts Mothership and Jeff Beck and closing with the ovation for 'Fragile', in wich Sting takes off his bass to play guitar.
The gig was initially planned to be performed at the Ippodromo (Racecourse) but then, although this is the third italian tour for 'BND' (over 7 million copies selling album since 99), the demand was such that the promoters were forced to move the show to the more accommodating Idropark.
(c) Il Giornio by author unknown/translated by Alessandro Magliarditi
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