Nothing Like The Sun: 1987/88

A wonderful night of Sting...

It was more than good. It was more than important. Sting's performance at Public Hall Wednesday night was rock history.

Taking the stage, Sting brings to mind Mick Jagger with his long shaggy hair and lanky, slender build. Clearly he has the star quality and the sex appeal. But where Mick and the boys were all about sex and violence of a kind, Sting is about music.

When he was chief of the Police he was about pop music. This night the sound is moving very graciously towards jazz and the near sell-out house loves it. The performer has grown musically and the audience is now a part of that process.

Where rock music typified by the Stones was about eternal youth, the here and now and of course, sex, Sting presents very reflective, introspective and for the most part, danceable compositions. They were refreshing and enjoyable on the album 'Nothing Like The Sun', but seeing them performed live sheds new light.

This isn't the usual boy-meets-girl, I-gotta-be-me, I-did-it-my-way stuff. Sting's songs go beyond the immediate. They address life in all of its complexity, but do it with harmony. Whether or not this irony is lost on the audience doesn't matter. Sting is making serious music, but not asking to be taken too seriously.

In interviews and on film, Sting comes off as intelligent and aloof, but mostly arrogant. On stage, making music he's quite at home and his personality doesn't really enter into it. He's as much there as he needs to be. The music he's written and is performing is much bigger than any media-inflated sort of celebrity that has been hung on him or that he has encouraged. He's not about being a superstar. He's about making music, music that he thinks is good and that he hopes you'll like.

It is. We do.

If there's anything missing from this show it's the kind of hyper-kinetic, crazed excitement that's usually associated with rock stars and their live appearances. This is less exciting but more real. We're watching a band make music. Good music. That's just fine. There's very little false about it.

There's an eight-piece band along, the most prominent member being Branford Marsalis on saxophone. The Marsalis family is from New Orleans and they're the Jacksons of jazz. Bass player Tracy Wormworth stands out because she's female, very good and very pretty. Individual performance here is not really an issue, although Jeff Campbell's heavy metal licks are hot, and Sting's Spanish guitar on 'Be Still My Beating Heart' is quite impressive.

Each song is like an operetta. Not that there's any stage scenery or furtive fooling around by Sting. The songs are simply whole, both musically and lyrically. The popular song engages the mind and is pleasant to the ear. Sting has that down.

More than that though, he's reaching. Not so far that he's in danger of falling or that the audience won't follow. Just enough to make it interesting and at the same time easy listenable. There's some pop, some jazz, a Brazilian flavour and some of the reggae back beat and bass lines that the Police first pioneered. The crowd down front was very physically into the music, but not in a compulsive way. It wasn't as if you couldn't sit through a song. It was as if you just didn't want to.

Mino Cinelu's percussion punctuated and underlined almost every song. There's something very basic and earthy about it that ties down the ethereal side of Sting's songs. The juxtaposition works well. Marsalis' horn is the perfect compliment for Sting's bared to the bone arrangements. The two of them alone on 'Roxanne' for the first encore was superb.

Even when covering his own material, Sting does things differently. After all, who wants to pay money to hear records you have at home? At one point Sting told the crowd, "You only live once, and even if you don't what's the difference?" He's not begging slavishly to be liked. He's doing some interesting things and he hopes you'll like them.

Sting also said that he like Cleveland because it reminded him of his home town Newcastle. "It's dirty, what the heck." No offense meant. None taken. There was no obligatory opening band, a civilized 20-minute half-time break and the Stingees started promptly at 8. As advertised.

The entire show was mildly wonderful, the dreamy 'Little Wing' coming closest to being a high point. Sting's interest in musical education was unavoidably infectious. Public Hall was like a giant classroom. And everybody got an "A" just for showing up.

(c) The Plain Dealer by Michael Heaton

Sting proves he can walk the rock beat alone...

Some folks will tell you that Sting is just another pretty face. But don't you believe them.

In the first place, there's nothing particularly pretty about this wiry, straw-haired, Malcolm McDowell look-alike.

And even if there were, the little Brit (Newcastle) packs enough wallop as a performer that it could easily go unnoticed, anyway.

Although best-known as a third of Police - the now-dormant (but supposedly still-intact) supergroup that was packing stadiums around the globe but a few short years ago - Sting (nee Gordon Sumner) has built a formidable reputation as an actor (the theater films Brimstone and Treacle, Dune, The Bride and Plenty) and solo musician, in his own right.

It was in the latter capacity that he greeted the 8,622 who showed up Wednesday, for his session at Public Hall in Cleveland.

And with few exceptions, he didn't disappoint.

Surrounded by a terrific, hand-picked ensemble that included keyboardists Kenny Kirkland and Delmar Brown, saxophonist Steve Coleman, guitarist Jeff Campbell, bassist Tracy Wormworth, percussionist Mino Cinelu and drummer Marvin Smith, Sting assembled a hard-hitting, nearly two-hour program that featured elements of jazz, rock, reggae and blues woven into a distinctive and appealing blend that has come to characterize his work.

Material from his debut solo album, 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' and current '...Nothing Like the Sun' album - including the hit single 'We'll Be Together' - provided a showcase for Sting's music, as well as his understated showmanship.

Bare-chested in a sport coat and black satin slacks - complete with a red stripe on each leg - he strutted his stuff with poise and charisma.

During a raucous 'One World', he even enlisted a couple members of the band to join him in a cha-cha line that toured the multilevel set and culminated in high-fives and somersaults.

During 'If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free', he just basked in the crowd's appreciation.

After a 20-minute intermission, Sting returned in a lavender sport coat that sort of set the mood for a moody, but somewhat more subdued second half that included particularly stirring versions of the old Police-beat staples, 'Roxanne' and 'Message in a Bottle'.

Now if he could just get friends to stop calling him Stingy.

(c) The Akron Beacon Journal by Mark Faris

Solo Sting satisfies Cleveland...

Sting has the world by the tail.

His post-Police solo music career has hit a lucrative peak with his recent album '...Nothing Like the Sun'. He's in four new movies: 'Stormy Monday'; 'Julia, Julia'; 'Baron Munchausen'; and 'The Passion'. And his world concert tour, which made a stop in Cleveland Wednesday night, is one of the most satisfying pop music events on the road.

You don't realize how many good songs Sting has until you hear him plough through a 19-song, two-hour live set. Besides owning matinee idol bone structure, Sting has plenty of musical substance. The shaggy-haired singer opened with a lengthy 'Lazarus Heart' from the new album and followed it with a funky 'We'll Be Together'.

His seven-piece band sounded marvellous: Branford Marsalis, sax; Kenny Kirkland, keys; Tracy Wormworth, bass; Mino Cinelu, percussion; Jeff Campbell, guitar; Jean-Paul Ceccarelli, drums; and Delmar Brown, keys. They were hot and capable of percolating rock, jazz and dance music, all of which Sting incorporates into his music. But the jazz sense he has found since leaving the Police, a reggae-dominated band, is the most attractive and pleasurable part of his new material.

Sting and company glided nicely into the cool, thoughtfully slow be-bop ballad of 'Sister Moon'. The song evoked images of a rainy night-time urban scene. Dressed like a Gentlemen's Quarterly model, Sting looked the part of a hep cat in baggy trousers and loose jacket with no shirt underneath.

Lush and jazzy chords distinguished 'Consider Me Gone' as the music went through numerous subtle changes. Marsalis' improvisations were the most notable.

But what got the crowd going, quite rightfully, were Sting's highly danceable pop hits: a thumping 'Rock Steady'; a groove-heavy 'One World'; 'Set Them Free'; and several more.

Sting showed other sides besides his sophisticated jazz-rock leanings and appealing commercial pop instincts.

He's real about love. The warlike imagery of 'Fortress Around Your Heart' deals with his divorce from actress Frances Tomelty.

Politics, too, are important to Sting. He wrote the beautifully moody 'They Dance Alone' after talking with former political prisoners he met during Amnesty International's Conspiracy of Hope tour with U2.

'Fragile', a song about terrorist violence, carried a slow, heavy sadness.

Some critics accuse Sting of iciness, but he seemed plenty warm. He strutted, danced, mugged and mimed throughout much of the show. A few more highlights: an incredible 'Little Wing', the Jimi Hendrix song; 'Roxanne'; 'The Secret Marriage'; 'Message In A Bottle'; 'Be Still My Beating Heart'; and 'Englishman In New York'.

(c) The Colombus Dispatch by John Petric