Brand New Day: 1999/01

Sting steamrolls through 20 years...

The air is dry as Friday's sun sets, illuminating with lingering light the stage at Jupiter's Temple. A growing audience settles in as the Beatles blare from the speakers. ''Some songs never age,'' smiles my neighbor. That's what most of the audience is counting on, I'm assuming, as they wait, biting fingers, clutching hands, for the appearance of one of pop-rock's most celebrated icons. Despite his 20-year solo career, Sting still has trouble escaping from the 1970s, when he burst onto the music scene with the Police.

One wonders, looking at the ''bastard'' crowd, as my neighbor puts it ''young, old, hippies, Frenchies'' how well they know Sting, or whether they're simply drawn by the big name. Certainly the girl in front of us is a bonafide fan, as she rattles off her latest Sting sighting at a hotel in Zahle that morning. ''They wouldn't let us get an autograph,'' she frowns. ''Oh but he's so cute!''

Quarter-to-nine and the 49-year old star emerges as the last fans settle in for Sting, even the most cultured make it on time kicking off with 'A Thousand Years' from the 1999 album 'Brand New Day', which has lent its name to the tour.

If the crowd is unfamiliar with the tune, no one minds. In a matter of minutes, even the worst curmudgeons the ones asking enthusiasts to sit down and stop dancing have started dancing themselves. By the band's second song, the better known 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free', Baalbek's 4,500-plus guests are up on their feet and waving their arms.

From there, the concert never slows. The six-member band steamrolls through two decades of Sting's solo songs at a pace giving the audience no chance to sit. Lebanese durbake player Paul Avanian joins the band for 'After the Rain Has Fallen'. He and the band's drummer, in knit hat and sunglasses, then erupt into the French rap 'Perfect Love...Gone Wrong', another release from 'Brand New Day'.

The concert appears flawless no sound breaks, no black-outs. When Sting kicks into 'Mad About You', a song about ''the region'' he once said, the audience sings along, or at least joins in with vocal enthusiasm.

The only frustration seems to be Sting's avoidance of Police songs (never mind that it is a 'Brand New Day' tour and Sting has been solo since 1984) as evidenced by the pleas of some audience members to ''play the Police!'' Sting finally does, with an upbeat rendition of 'Every Little Thing She Does is Magic'.

But the highlights of the show come in the idiosyncrasies of songs that may not have been so familiar. In the jazz influenced 'Moon Over Bourbon Street', Sting spotlights his trumpet player, who explodes with a flurry of scales. Sting's vocals, known for their wide-ranging intervals and clarity of tone, never falter as he and his trumpet player play off each other's skills. With all six band members at times joining in for harmony, the background is tight, every song full.

The set list is poignant: 'Desert Rose', Sting's Arab-influenced new release which to the disappointment of the crowd was performed without Rai singer Cheb Mami wafts through the venue with eerie aptness. After an encore of 'If I Ever Lose my Faith in You', followed by 'Every Breath You Take', Sting returns for a second encore in which he starts off solo with 'Message In a Bottle', a Police song about abandonment and the loneliness of being unheard. His final song, 'Fragile', bears an unmistakable message: ''That nothing comes from violence, and nothing ever could, lest we forget how fragile we are.''

Ending after two hours, the only complaint of the evening was that the concert was too short. As we're herded into the buses that will bear us back to Beirut there's no doubt, between the pushes and the shoves, that everyone from Police aficionado to Sting worshipper has just left one of the best shows of the summer.

(c) The Daily Star by Amal Bouhabib

Sting hots up Lebanon's famed Baalbek festival...

Around 4,500-strong audience of music-lovers of all ages and from all backgrounds greeted the former Police frontman with a deafening standing ovation.

British rock star Sting burst into the majestic Roman ruins of Baalbek with two electrifying concerts at the weekend that sent a crowd of some 4,500 people dancing, cheering and singing.

"How nice to be in Lebanon," Sting told the enthusiastic crowd. "What a wonderful venue." As part of a world tour to promote his recent cross-cultural album Brand New Day, Sting played an energetic set against the purple-lit backdrop of the Roman Temple of Jupiter, whose six colossal pillars are said to be the largest remaining in the world.

Sting's appearance at the two sold-out performances on Friday and Saturday nights at the Baalbek International Festival - a month-long music, theatre and dance festival - had drawn criticism from some purists who feared that pop acts would commercialise the prestigious arts festival.

But a 4,500-strong audience of music-lovers of all ages and from all backgrounds greeted the former Police frontman and his six-member band with a deafening standing ovation.

Sting's latest album, acclaimed for its global flavour, includes the world hit Desert Rose - a duet with Algerian artist Cheb Mami, using Arabic lyrics and instruments.

Sting began and ended an uninterrupted set with songs from Brand New Day, but performed a selection that spanned much of his almost quarter-century musical career, including old favourites like Every Breath You Take and Roxanne from his former band, the Police.

But the biggest hit with the audience wild was Mad About You which started with: "A stone's throw from Jerusalem. I walked a lonely mile in the moonlight and though a million stars were shining my heart was lost on a distant planet... I'm mad about you."

Baalbek - a divided town where part of the population earns its living from growing cannabis while others have made it a bulwark of Muslim fundamentalism - was festive, peaceful and alive as streams of cars and fans descended on it.

Thousands of foreign tourists flocked to Baalbek every year for what was the Middle East's most spectacular festival until the 1975-1990 civil war brought it to a halt.

For some years after the war the festival could not return, as Baalbek, located in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley, was controlled by the Shi'ite Muslim Hizbollah guerrilla group. The festival was resurrected in 1997, fulfilling a dream that organisers had kept alive through the war years.

"I dedicate these (last) two songs to the people of Lebanon who have been through years of war and look at you, how lovely you are," Sting said as he concluded his concert on Saturday night.

(c) Reuters