Nothing Like The Sun: 1987/88

Sting at the Boston Garden last night...

Sting is no ordinary pop star. He discusses Jung and casually quotes Shakespeare. His lyrics not only deal with lost loves, but also with repression in Latin America and the meaning of history. He mentions Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill as influences.

Musically, he draws from reggae and heavy metal, jazz and rock. He also talks about Chilean cuecas. He surrounds himself with some of the best young musicians on the jazz scene today. He's both a "thinking fan's rock star" and an insufferable pop icon, often lost in self-importance.

But last night, for long stretches, it all became a moot, a faint backdrop for a stunning, high-energy show put on by Sting, the great entertainer.

It's a show full of touches of radical chic, muddled thinking and contradictions, but as guilty pleasures go, this one was most probably worth the guilt.

Leading a powerful octet Kenny Kirkland and Delmar Brown on keyboards; Branford Marsalis, saxophones; Mino Cinelu, percussion; Tracy Wormworth, bass; Jean Paul Ceccarelli, drums; Jeff Campbell, guitar and Dolette McDonald, backup vocals Sting presented the material from his most recent album, '...Nothing Like The Sun'.

He opened with a torrid version of 'Lazarus Heart', which turned into the Police's old hit, 'Too Much Information', and took off from there.

After a rocking 'We'll Be Together', Sting worked the crowd with the sure. touch of a master showman-politician, props (a tea bag) and all, before introducing "Englishman In New York." It was one of the few times he addressed the audience directly.

For the most part, when not just singing and accompanying himself on guitar, Sting worked the corners of the stage, leading a dance line made of Marsalis and Cinelu (as in 'One World'), or just walking up, down and around the stage as if surveying his kingdom (as in the beautiful, film noirish 'Sister Moon').

There were also powerful versions of 'If You Love Somebody', and 'Bring On The Night' and a moving, delicate reading of 'Fragile'. Also, Kirkland has played better, more incisive solos in his career, but not many more passionate than the one last night on 'Bring On...'

But there are limits to Sting's everything-is-a-good-subject-for-a-pop-tune approach and they were underlined by 'They Dance Alone', which opened the show's second half.

This is beautiful song that refers to a public, silent dance performed in Chile by the mothers, wives and daughters of the desaparecidos under the brutal regime of Gen. Pinochet. But there was no announcement, no explanation, no context.

And as the song progressed, the screen above the stage showed Sting singing and, superimposed, images from his recent concert in Argentina when he was joined on stage at an outdoor concert by the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. As they held hands behind Sting, the camera closed on their faces, creased by years of pain and frustration. They are living reminders of the savage repression that took the lives of thousands of people and almost destroyed a nation. Then Mino Cinelu took a solo. The song ended. Next in the list was a love song, 'Be Still My Beating Heart'.

(c) The Boston Globe by Fernando Gonzalez

Sting Scales the Boston Garden Walls...

By the end of his current world tour, Sting - this year's "rock star the critics love to hate" - should have shaken all the labels too easily pinned on him in the past.

Before a capacity crowd at Boston Garden Friday night, the shaggy but trim-looking ex-Policeman led a crack seven-piece band through two sets that stretched the boundaries of conventional music-making.

The two-hour-plus evening spawned moments of supreme musicianship, spanning such diverse genres as jazz, reggae, samba, blues and pure pop.

And though he clearly was the one most in the audience came to see, Sting seems to have learned to share the spotlight. Several numbers throughout the night provided ample opportunity for each musician to shine.

The somewhat unevenly paced show kicked off with 'The Lazarus Heart' off the recently released double album '...Nothing Like the Sun'.

The LP was to figure prominently in the night's repertoire, accounting for 11 of the 20 songs performed.

The sluggish first set didn't really hit stride until the band dove into 'Straight to My Heart', which, for some reason, was introduced by a tirade from Sting about Americans' inability to make a decent cup of tea.

Perhaps his "campaign for a better cup of tea," punctuated by a teabag pulled from the pocket of his white linen jacket, was just part of the "intellectual, thinking man's rock star" persona he's cultivated since leaving the Police.

From that point on, the show steadily built momentum as the band loosened up, culminating in a sloppily executed somersault across the stage by the bottled blond himself at the end of 'One World'.

The first set ended with the beautifully reworked medley 'Bring on the Night'/'When the World Is Running Down' that highlighted the Blue Turtles tour in 1986.

The segment proved the band's best opportunity to break loose, with pianist Kenny Kirkland furiously scaling up and down the keys.

After a 20-minute intermission, the group returned for a second set that wasn't much longer than the break.

The elegant 'They Dance Alone' opened the second half. The song, whose homage to the "mothers of the disappeared" in Chile got it banned in that country, was guided by the mournful strains of horn player Branford Marsalis. It ended, however, in a rousing salsa tempo propelled by percussionist Mino Cinelu that seemed to transform it into a song of hope.

The set proper ended with the remake of the Jimi Hendrix classic 'Little Wing', which, naturally, was guitarist Jeff Campbell's moment to soar.

Surprisingly, the three-song encore included two Police classics; not surprisingly, one of them was 'Roxanne'.

Also not surprisingly, during the final number, 'Don't Stand So Close to Me', Sting felt compelled to whip off the blue jacket into which he'd changed, revealing his bare chest underneath. Apparently, he doesn't yet feel comfortable enough selling his music without the sex appeal he knows he commands.

Still, if nothing else, the show proved what an able bandleader Sting has become. The seven musicians assembled for the U.S. leg of the tour, who also included bassist Tracy Wormworth, keyboardist Delmar Brown and drummer Marvin Smith, play as if they've been together for years; you'd be hard-pressed to find a tighter, more enthusiastic ensemble.

The breakup of the Police notwithstanding, Sting is far from a solo act these days.

(c) The Worcester Telegram by Patty Pryor