Nothing Like The Sun: 1987/88

Sting wows Chapel Hill...

Moving with cat-like grace across a simple black stage, former Police chief Sting gave a crowd of about 15,000 a concert Thursday that will not soon be forgotten.

Although he has gone from trio to solo, Sting still has a bevy of talent who faithfully back him up and in this case, help him excite a crowd in the Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill. The concert marked one of the stops on Sting's '...Nothing Like the Sun' tour.

This complex and multi-talented man has come a long way from his first solo tour in 1985 with 'Dream of the Blue Turtles'. Although that concert was good, the missing ingredient was excitement and enjoyment from the performer. He sang, he said thank you and that was it.

However, Thursday night I felt I was seeing a different man. Freed from the shackles of critics' disapproval in 1985 with his new jazz style, Sting knew this time around he had been accepted by his fans and he could have fun with his music - and with the audience.

Although he had cancelled two earlier concerts because of throat problems, fans expecting an abbreviated concert came away pleasantly surprised almost three hours and two encores later.

Sting, obviously in a good mood, shouted to the crowd, "After a 10 minute break, I'll come back and play all night."

And he nearly did - bringing down the house for two hours and 45 minutes. Never have I seen Sting enjoy himself more.

Mixing old with new, Sting opened with 'The Lazarus Heart', a song from his new two- album set and went on to play a little of everything, taking the audience on an emotional rollercoaster ride - slowing the pace for 'They Dance Alone' and speeding up on 'Consider Me Gone'.

He played every song in the '...Nothing Like the Sun' collection as well as four songs from 'Dream of the Blue Turtles' including 'Fortress Around Your Heart', 'Consider Me Gone', 'If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free' and 'Love is the Seventh Wave'.

And for those who still can't let Sting rest from his earlier Police songs, he played several of them also.

"What is it you want to hear?" Sting asked when he came out for his first encore.

The crowd overwhelmingly responded with 'Roxanne'.

Sting looked perplexed for a minute, saying every time he asked for a request, it always turned out to be the Police-hit, 'Roxanne'. But not one to deny the crowd for one minute during this incredible concert, he played the song.

However, it wasn't the driving version from those early years, but a slow, ballad-like rendition with Sting accompanied by the masterful Branford Marsalis on soprano saxophone.

Marsalis is an unbelievable player, and I enjoy listening to his saxophone parts almost as much as listening to Sting sing.

Other Police favourites Sting played were 'Message in a Bottle', 'One World Is Enough', 'Too Much Information', 'Don't Stand So Close to Me' (1986 version) and finally 'Spirits in the Material World'.

After finishing 'Spirits' Sting said he felt a little like Madonna singing 'Material Girl' and jokingly sang a few bars of her hit.

I think I will have to say the best song of the night - and the most inspired performance came with the Jimi Hendrix song, 'Little Wing', the last song Sting played before the first encore.

Sting's performance was so emotionally moving I sat enthralled long after he left the stage - awed by this performer and the skilled musicians he had hand-picked.

I can't help but feel I got a rare glimpse of Sting that night. Not the aloof and arrogant British rocker but a performer who gave his audience a piece of himself for the first time since the break up of the Police.

(c) The News Herald by Anna Wilson

The Sting concert pop and jazz viewpoints...

A great pop show... but not jazz fusion

There may not be a better concert this year in the Triangle than the one Sting gave at the Smith Center Thursday night.

For 2 hours and 15 minutes, Sting and his band glided through renditions of all 12 songs from 'Nothing Like the Sun', three from "Dream of the Blue Turtles" and six Police songs, including 'Roxanne', 'Spirits in the Material World' and 'Message in a Bottle'.

Nearly every song was re-interpreted, revealing a treasure chest of possibilities. There was a sense that it could have gone on forever - alas, it could not.

The performance, before a crowd of 11,084, confirmed that Sting works on a new, much higher, level than he did during his Police days.

The concept of this concert differed from his 1986 'Turtles' tour, which was more vocally oriented. With the addition of percussionist Mino Cinelu, this show was dominated by its rhythmic content. Therefore it was necessary to re-interpret harmony-driven songs such as "If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free."

The lights went down at 8:20. Seven silhouettes filtered across the stage and then the air was abruptly bathed in the warm glow of Branford Marsalis' saxophone as he blew the introduction to "Lazarus Heart."

Like Paul Simon on the 'Graceland' tour, Sting assumed the on-stage role of elder musician, using his pop-god status to present his newfound musical friends who have invigorated his music.

At many times he stepped aside, passing the limelight to members of the band. He seemed to revel in their achievements, applauding their leads, and even shaking the hand of Carrboro native Jeff Campbell after his guitar lead on "Little Wing." (More about that later.)

Introducing the concert's eighth song, 'Straight To My Heart', Sting noted that the meter was in 7. "Some people might say it's dance-proof," Sting said. But he proceeded to demonstrate how someone might groove to such an unusual rhythm. This was assuredly NOT disco.

After he forgot the first line to the next song, 'Spirits', the band ground to a halt. Sting asked the audience for the line, but shook his head at the reply. "No," he scolded, "the first line is not 'Roxanne.'

Sting re-claimed the stage after a 20-minute intermission, opening with 'They Dance Alone (Gueca Solo)'. It was the only song that lost something live. Its studio identity, rooted in the tender mix of voice and pan flute, was obliterated by the driving jazz rhythms and extended improvisation from keyboard player Kenny Kirkland and Marsalis. This is one Sting should have left alone.

But two songs later, Sting found that subtle touch in the guitar riffs of 'Fragile'. He sang the first verse in Portuguese to no particular end and then returned to cover the entire song in English.

His voice burned with the line, "On and on the rain will fall/Like tears from a star," balanced movingly by his light hands on acoustic guitar.

Sting saved the best for last, however. 'Little Wing', his Gil Evans arrangement of the Jimi Hendrix classic, soared on the flight of Campbell's rock'n'roll guitar. For a few brief moments, Campbell was the star. Among such elite musicians as Marsalis and Kirkland, Campbell not only held his own but distinguished himself.

But this was Sting's show - a point that Sting was not about to let slip. He returned for five encore numbers, one of which was a duet with Marsalis ('Roxanne') and another ('Message in a Bottle') solo. It sounded the concert's final note. What a sweet-sad note it was.

(c) The News and Observer by Michael Hetzer

From a jazz perspective, Sting's concert Thursday night at the Smith Center incorporated jazz into pop music, but it did not fuse the two.

The real fusion was between Sting's British pop music sensibility and his use of Afro-Caribbean-South American rhythms. Not that he should fuse jazz and pop, which would compromise his own established and powerful sense of direction in pop music. 

That sense was in absolute command Thursday night, ranging from the haunting, ethereal colours of "Sister Moon" to the distorted rock sounds of Jimi Hendrix's 'Little Wing', the only non-Sting composition heard at this concert. It was present in Sting's lilting vocal phrasing and in his sharing the spotlight with members of the seven-piece band.

Saxophonist Branford Marsalis, keyboard player Kenny Kirkland and percussionist Mino Cinelu were the jazz connection in this band. Sting's tunes have neither the harmonic sophistication nor the swing rhythms of jazz. But within the one-chord vamps and simple harmonic cycles of his tunes, Marsalis and Kirkland energised the performances beyond the dimensions of rock music. And Cinelu was a dynamo.

This is not to demean the contributions of Jeff Campbell, the Carrboro guitarist on tour with Sting. His solo on "Little Wing" was a climax of rock guitar devices: distorted tone; whining, arching notes; bent- double intensity.

Sting himself played guitar occasionally, his most sensitive moments coming on 'Fragile'. This was an excursion into brooding Brazilian-tinged exoticism (including lyrics in Portuguese and English) and as close to subtlety as Sting came in this concert.

At the other extreme were 'Rock Steady', 'We'll Be Together' and 'Be Still My Beating Heart'. Funky rhythms infused these al- most a Crusaders beat - and Marsalis uncorked a preaching tenor solo on 'Rock Steady'.

Kirkland soloed less frequently and with no great harmonic revelation but with a climactic sense of construction based on percussiveness. Second keyboard player Delmar Brown also soloed, a scintillating blend of keyboard lines and voice in unison in the manner of Brazilian singer Tania Maria.

The intelligence of Sting's lyrics and the controlled structure and colours of his tunes indicate that he could make an impressive jazz album, or rather a vocal album with all jazz backing. Gil Evans, who arranged 'Little Wing' on Sting's newest album, 'Nothing Like the Sun', could do wonders with a 'Sister Moon' or a 'Fragile' using an all-acoustic big band.

The result might not be a fusion, but it would be the best of both worlds: pop and jazz. As it is, Sting's got the best of pop, and the jazz - what there is of it on this tour - is as good as it gets in pop music.

(c) The News and Observer by Owen Cardle

Wrapped around his finger...

Imagine: a classroom the size of a sports arena. One young teacher up on the lecture platform, speaking into the microphone. The course material ranges from 17th century literature to modern psychoanalytic theory, with a healthy dose of political commentary thrown in. Thousands of students stand and applaud the teacher throughout the two-hour class.

If you think this scenario is impossible, then you didn't see Sting in concert last Thursday.

Sting may have given up the class- room years ago, but he hasn't stopped educating his disciples. Not since Bob Dylan has a rock star dropped so many names, alluded to so much literature. A brief description of his course load:

• Shakespeare. "My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun."
• Psychology. Carl Jung's theory of "synchronicity."
• Modern literature. ". . . just like that old man in that book by Nabokov."
• 20th century politics. "They dance alone" under the oppressive Pinochet regime in Chile.
• Greek mythology. "... caught between the Scylla and Charybdis."

This is just a 15-hour load, but Sting has probably referred to enough classes to graduate with honours. In these days of heavy metal, he nobly waves his glittering banner of literacy and intelligence amidst the tattered, skull-and-crossbones flags of Megadeth and Anthrax.

However, Sting has a ways to go before deserving the title of rock music's poet laureate, the teeny- bopper's T.S. Eliot. Rock'n'roll is ultimately dependent on sex, not Shakespeare. Sting can sing about Mephistopheles and political solutions until his voice cracks, but the crowd really wants to hear him lust after his beloved prostitute.

By his own admission, Sting is trapped by 'Roxanne', doomed to repeat his first lesson over and over again. "I'm a prisoner," he complained to the crowd. But not an unwilling prisoner. During the encore, he stripped down to his bare chest and crossed back over the line from teacher to rock star. Sting knows that most people would rather have sex than a copy of the 'Odyssey', and he gave them what they wanted.

Girls screamed and stared through binoculars from as close as the 12th row. Guys muttered, "Well, I've got a better body than that." Maybe, but it's not Sting's body.

And that's what rock music is fundamentally about fundamentally about bodies and sex and frustration and unrequited love and passion and etc. Sting does well to mix in politics and literature, but he'll never be able to put out the red light. 

(c) The Daily Tar Heel by Brian McCuskey

Sting's Voice A Miracle, But Show Uneven...

"Everyday another miracle" - so goes a line from 'The Lazarus Heart', the opening song in Sting's concert in the Dean Smith Center Thursday night.

And it was sort of a miracle, for he had cancelled three shows previously (one in Nashville, two in Atlanta) due to a sore throat. Here his voice was in fine form. The show, however, was an uneven affair, exciting at parts, slow and a bit boring at others.

Sting manages to combine pop, jazz and percussion-oriented material to make for an interesting style. An unusual group of musicians included Bradford Marsalis on sax whose dazzling contributions laced the songs with a power and intensity that soared above the mix. Also present was Carrboro native Jeff Campbell on guitar, who put in a few hot licks of his own. Kenny Kirkland and Delmar Brown tore up the keyboards, while Minu Cinelo went wild beating various percussion instruments in a frenzy. Tracey Wormsworth (bass) and John Paul Ceccarelli (drums) rounded out the ensemble with a solid rhythmic foundation.

Sting was in fine vocal form, but it was somewhat disappointing not to see him on bass. Some guitar, some tambourine, a tiny bit of keyboards; like Phil Collins, he has be- come more of a frontman then the musician he started out as.

When the songs worked, as in 'An Englishman In New York' or 'Set Them Free', which really jammed out, they were brilliant pieces. But the less than average version of the Police's 'Spirits In The Material World' was embarrassing; it should never have come round.

The songs seethed with a power, the tambourine hissing like a rattlesnake in the grass, the sax flowing like wine.

A likable, if unsteady two sets from one of rocks more interesting characters.

(c) The Herald Sun by Gordon Lewis