Nothing Like The Sun: 1987/88

On his own, Sting at the Spectrum...

In his work away from the Police, Sting has displayed a marked inclination for lashing ponderous lyrics to wispy jazz arrangements. His sparkling performance last night at the Spectrum was a delightful departure from form.

Not that his lyrics were any less gravid, but the music often carried a gripping thrust and momentum that his solo records do not.

Dressed in black trousers and a dinner jacket over a bare chest, Sting came out swinging.

The opening number, 'Lazarus Heart', was galvanized by the band's dual percussion and an underpinning of Latin keyboards. It segued into a truncated but punchy rendition of the Police's 'Too Much Information'. That one-two punch was followed by the funky strut of 'We'll Be Together'.

Backed by a fluid octet, Sting covered much of the material from his latest album, '...Nothing Like the Sun', including a haunting version of 'Fragile'.

The two sets, divided by intermission, also took in earlier compositions like 'Roxanne' and 'Bring On the Night'.

Although the key personnel (notably Kenny Kirkland on keyboards and Branford Marsalis on saxophone) were unchanged from Sting's last tour, this appearance was less stuffy and more satisfying. By dint of eliminating most of the free-form jazz solos and fustian arrangements, the music gained appreciable focus and pacing.

Playing guitar and synthesizer and in fine voice, Sting seemed in a relaxed mood, as if for once he had nothing to prove. He has always radiated a palpable vanity that makes him a charismatic performer.

At the Spectrum, he combined that magnetism with a suave energy, and the result was a riveting stage presence. There were nebulous musical moments last night, as in 'Sister Moon' when he floated like a butterfly; but for most of the evening, Sting stung like a bee.

(c) The Philadelphia Inquirer by David Hiltbrand

Sting captivates Philly crowd...

Sting brought his new sound to the Spectrum Wednesday, to promote his latest album, 'Nothing Like The Sun'. "It was a smooth and classy show.

As a member of the Police, Sting rose to international stardom. He was known as much for his icy blond looks and quick intellect as for his Jamaican-rooted music.

Sting broke away from the group in 1985 to release a jazz-based album titled, 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles'. Notable jazz musicians, such as Branford Marsalis, played on the album and helped to make it the success it was.

Now that the idea of Sting as a jazz-pop musician (pop must be added to the word jazz, since purists would argue that Sting isn't playing "true" jazz) no longer surprises people, he can develop this sound.

Wednesday's show at the Spectrum was comprised mainly of songs from '...Nothing Like The Sun'. There were enough old Police songs to appeal to those fans as well, however.

He opened the show with 'The Lazarus Heart', the first track off his new album. Sting was dressed in a white satin blazer and black tuxedo pants. He and his saxophone/clarinet player, Branford Marsalis (who helped on this album, as well), who was dressed in a suit and tie, were the very picture of sophistication. This did not stop either Sting or the band from dancing around the stage throughout most of the show, though.

Next came 'We'll Be Together', the most popular single from the album. That was followed by several other '...Nothing Like The Sun' songs, including 'Englishman In New York', 'Sister Moon', (the sequel to 'Moon Over Bourbon Street' on his last album) and 'Rock Steady'.

'Straight To My Heart' is a love song from the new album that is in 7/4 time. Sting had the audience count to show what 7/4 time is.

"One, two, three, four, five six, seven... see, it's a new measure after every seven beats," he explained.

Sting closed out the first half of his performance (yes, there were two parts to the concert) with a Police favourite, "One World Is Enough," in which he did a somersault across the stage.

Sting has always written songs that were of a political nature. 'Driven To Tears' and 'Russians' are just two examples..

On '...Nothing Like the Sun' Sting wrote a song about "The mothers of the disappeared" in Chile. The title is 'They Dance Alone (Gueca Solo)'. That song opened his second set.

Later on, the melodic and lilting 'Fragile' was followed by the Jimi Hendrix cover, 'Little Wing'. This was undoubtedly the best song of the concert. Sting mixed his soaring vocals with the screaming guitar of one of his band members and the result was unbelievable.

After a jacket change, Sting asked the audience, "So what do you want to hear?" "ROXANNE!!!" they screamed back.

"Every night of my life I sing this blessed song." Sting yelled half jokingly. "Don't you want to hear something else?"

"NO!!!" the crowd yelled back. "Well okay." Sting said as he strapped on his guitar and jammed into his ode to the reformation of a hooker.

He ended with yet another. version of 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' in which he took off his jacket and the crowd went nuts at the sight of his bare chest.

But the concert was not over yet. Sting returned to the stage with his keyboard player, Kenny, and his bass player, Tracy. He dedicated "Secret Marriage" to them because they are a couple."

Last, but not least, came the Police standard. 'Message In A Bottle'. Sting sang the chorus of the song back and forth with the audience until they thought it would never end. But it did.

(c) The Villanovan by Kathryn Quigley

Sting satisfies Spectrum...

Sting, pop music's intellectual heart- throb, rocked a near sell-out crowd at the Spectrum Tuesday, February 2nd.

Hot from the success of his latest solo effort, 'Nothing Like The Sun', which spawned the danceable single "We'll Be Together," the former Police vocalist, bassist, and main songwriter is fronting an eight-piece band of jazz and studio musicians on a worldwide tour.

Before a diverse audience of teeny-boppers and adults alike, Sting presented his brand of eclectic pop, African and South American polyrhythms and latino-flavored sambas under the guise of jazz- rock fusion.

The opening conga solo was indicative of the direction Sting's music has taken since his days with the Police, and foreshadowed the music to follow.

The concert opened with 'The Lazarus Heart', an upbeat song despite its subject matter, the recent death of Sting's mother, to whom his latest album is dedicated.

'Too Much Information' followed, and the older fans joined in joyful reminiscence with the blonde deity by singing along.

When he wasn't being pervadingly serious and overbearing, he was prancing about the stage in unison with Branford Marsalis and Mino Cinelu to 'We'll Be Together', a catchy display of pure funkadelia, and 'Rock Steady', blues interpretation of the biblical Noah's Ark.

The first concluded with 'Bring On The Night/When The World Is Running Down...' medley, the ending of which lasted a full five minutes (Beethoven would have been proud). Featured here were the pulsating jazz keyboards of Kenny Kirkland, and the animalistic pounding of percussionist Cinelu.

As he left the stage at intermission, Sting vowed to return in twenty minutes and "play all night."

Just when the Looney Tune cartoons were getting good, Sting reappeared at center stage to fulfil his promise. For the next hour he challenged the audience to dance to 'Straight To My Heart', a Metheny-esque tune in 7/4 time, and gave the people what they wanted with an acoustic 'Roxanne'.

Sting also proved to be more than just a pretty face with his sensitive guitar work on 'Fragile'.

A few stanzas of Jimi Hendrix's 'Voodoo Chile' foretold the coming of Sting's cover of 'Little Wing', a tender Hendrix ballad, and perhaps the strongest cut on the new LP.

Sting the bookworm and former English teacher at an all-girls school (chronicled in the Police song 'Don't Stand So Close To Me') was given yet another opportunity to expand his library when an adoring fan tossed a copy of The Portable Jung on stage.

Karl Jung is the author of 'Synchronicity: An Acasual Connecting Priciple', upon which is based much of the Police album 'Synchronicity'.

The encore included 'Fortress Around Your Heart', much to the delight of everyone present, the rehashed version of 'Don't Stand So Close To Me', much to the dismay of traditionalist Police fans, and the inevitable 'Message in a Bottle'. The latter proved to be the perfect vehicle for sing-along time, as the ever theatrical Sting divided the audience into two choirs.

At the closing of 'Message in a Bottle', Sting's band joined him on stage in chorus line fashion to bid farewell to Philadelphia.

No one went home dissatisfied.

(c) The Quad-West Chester University by David Hilgen

Sting rocks Spectrum with newfound flair...

Because Sting did not play Philadelphia on his first solo tour in 1985, last night's Spectrum appearance by the British pop/movie star was a long overdue affair fraught with great expectations. For the most part, the one-time school teacher did not disappoint.

Fronting a versatile seven-piece band sparked by the riffing of celebrated jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis, Sting delighted the Spectrum audience with a super-slick two hours of music old and new, the bulk of which came from his latest album, 'Nothing Like the Sun'.

On the one hand, it is hard to find fault with anything that transpired last night. Sting was in fine vocal form throughout, and the seven backing musicians flowed seamlessly between the sometime jazzy, sometime Caribbean-influenced compositions.

Among the many highlights were several songs from the new LP, each of which boasted the snap, crackle and pop their recorded counterparts lack. Faring the best in their live interpretations were the sly 'Englishman In New York', the lush 'Sister Moon' and the album's first single, 'We'll Be Together', a surprisingly simple (but effective) piece of pop puffery.

On the other hand, someone purposely searching for something with which they could quibble needn't have looked very hard, for one can make the argument that with Sting, less is definitely more.

As finely rendered as the music was, the full sound produced by the band had a price, the lack of the tension that identifies the most enduring work of Sting's former band, the Police.

The haunting timbre and distant delivery of his singular vocal style was actually showcased better against the sparse instrumental colourings that were the Police's stock-in-trade. The way Sting's voice snaked around his own bass lines and Stewart Copeland's intricate drum patterns, then tiptoed through the splashes of chords from Andy Summers' guitar, resulted in music that were as dramatic as the pop form ever gets.

With but three instruments, the Policemen walked a musical tightrope, creating an exquisite tension that allowed the trio to break new pop-rock ground.

But with the big band approach he has favoured in his post-Police days, that brittle tautness has all but vanished from his repertoire. This was most evident in the first three-quarters of the Amnesty International-inspired 'They Dance Alone' and the reworked Police song 'Bring on the Night', both of which begged for that minimalist format.

This, as his many fans would doubtless protest, is irrelevant in light of his more recent accomplishments. Judging from the whole of last night's program, they'd probably be right.

Other than the bigness of his sound, the only other aspect of the concert with which one might have faulted was that his arrangements tended to be a bit overblown. Too often, songs continued on, even though no more new ideas were being introduced.

But there was no problem with the full-bodied versions of songs like 'Set Them Free', 'Fortress Around Your Heart', and another Police oldie, 'When the World is Running Down (Make the Best of What's Still Around)'.

Nor was there anything wrong with Sting's on-stage looseness, something this rather serious musician seldom exhibited during his days as a cop.

(c) The Courier Post by Chuck Darrow

Sting shines with 'Sun' at the Spectrum...

Sting, the former frontman of the rock group The Police, wooed and won a receptive Spectrum audience Tuesday night with his solo act of third-world rhythms, political statements and twisted romance.

Opening with 'The Lazarus Heart' from his new album, 'Nothing Like The Sun', the scruffy blonde singer and his eight-member band performed 22 songs during a show that lasted more than two and a half hours.

The entire show proved that Sting has hit his stride. Sting (a.k.a Gordon Sumner) seemed to know it too: He appeared relaxed and comfortable all night long as he danced around and chatted to the crowd.

After a red-hot version of 'We'll Be Together Tonight', Sting turned to the crowd. "It's nice to be back in Philadelphia. How are you? How are you really? C'mon, tell me," he said, drawing a giant roar from thousands of screaming fans.

Yet 'Nothing Like The Sun', which is in the top 20 on the Billboard charts, is the product of a difficult time in the 36-year-old singer's life.

The album is dedicated to his mother, Audrey, who died during the making of the record after a two-year illness. His father, Ernest, died barely six months later.

Instead of wallowing in depressing songs, Sting's new album is full of upbeat and often beautiful music that's mostly about pain and suffering. Whether singing about his mother or the fragile human spirit in war-torn Nicaragua or the violation of human rights in Chile, Sting's songs on 'Nothing Like The Sun' reflect maturity, an acceptance of love, and a person at peace with himself.

The most recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine calls the album "a smorgasbord of high-stepping reggae, lilting Hispanic rhythm, big-band jazz and the whispery strum of Brazilian samba, linked by the theme of maternal strength in the face of male-triggered social and political disaster."

One effective political statement on the album is 'They Dance Alone', a moving tribute to the Chilean wives, mothers and daughters who dance with pictures of their "disappeared" husbands, fathers and sons pinned to them. The Chilean government board of censors has banned 'Nothing Like the Sun' because of the subject matter of 'They Dance Alone' and its criticism of the Pinochet regime, Rolling Stone has reported.

Politics aside, Sting was out to have fun Tuesday as he led a band loaded with enough talent to upstage him several times during the evening.

The most obvious talent was the saxophone playing of Branford Marsalis, a charter member of the Blue Turtles band who has re-joined Sting for his current U.S. tour. Also outstanding was Jeff Campbell's guitar playing, especially on Sting's version of 'Little Wing', the Jimi Hendrix song.

During the last of the three encores of the night, Sting asked the crowd what they wanted to hear.

"What? You Give Love a Bad Name?' That's (by) Bon Jovi, you fool!" he said, referring to the screamer-rock band lead by New Jersey native Jon Bon Jovi. 'Message In A Bottle?' I don't know it. Hold on... it's coming back to me," he said, before launching into the song But the highlight of the night for many of the female fans didn't involve music. It was when Sting took off his blazer to reveal his bare chest and suspenders. The roar was deafening.

Songs from other albums performed during the show included 'Bring on the Night', 'If You Love Someone Set Them Free', 'Roxanne', and 'Don't Stand So Close To Me'.

(c) The Gloucester County Times by Noreen Toner