Nothing Like The Sun: 1987/88

Fragile, even superb...

Thousands of people gathered at the Flaminio Stadium yesterday for the Sting concert - nearly three hours of top-quality rock and jazz. He also spoke and sang in Italian, performing almost all of his new material and a few songs by the Police.

Moved, amused, enthusiastic, ecstatic: that's how, after nearly three hours, the thousands and thousands of people, perhaps thirty thousand, gathered at the Flaminio Stadium for the Sting concert. They were confronted with one of the most innovative musicians of the last decade, whose journey, from the early punk of the Police to the "Blue Turtles," has evolved like that of few others, delivering a superb performance.

The impression of the band accompanying him is the same as that reported a week ago, in Milan; Alongside genuine prodigies like keyboardists Kenny Kirkland and Delmar Brown, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, percussionist Minu Cinelu, and vocalist Dolette McDonald, there's a bassist, the eager Tracy Wormworth, and Jean Paul Ceccarelli on drums, both obliterated, strangled by the memory of Darryl Jones and Omar Hakim, while guitarist Jeff Campbell proves to be very good in the long run.

With a decidedly inferior rhythm section, incapable of sustaining many of the fast-paced songs he offers, Sting has tried to prioritize the keyboards even more - and Brown, kudos to him for his falsetto - by giving Cinelu a double dose of work and reserving his proper role, that of singer, where he's unbeatable. A decline compared to the past? Without Jones's thumb and claws and Hakim's agile hands and extremities, it's a different kind of music, with a strong jazz flavor, but emotionally - it's with artists like him, Peter Gabriel, the U2 of emotions, of consciousness - that one must take into account - absolutely not.

Before, they delved into the unconscious; now, with a song like "They Dance Alone" - the opening gives you goosebumps, the lyrics bring tears to your eyes - they delve into the Latin American tragedy, talking about how we should all fight torture, dictatorships, injustice, a world in moral and material dissolution. Before, the music mattered more; now, what it says matters even more; it invites awareness, which is not a bad thing in a universe devoted to hedonism and futility.

The band is close-knit, the four pillars supporting the powerful musical melee that immediately hits the mark with "The Lazarus Heart," a tribute to his late mother, an act of crystalline grief, an act of pure love. Just as "Set Them Free" is an anti-racist cry and "Englishman in New York" is a documentation of sexual discrimination, "Russians," complete with a Prokofievian phrase, is a call for relaxation, and "Consider Me Gone" is a tribute to Shakespeare, as well as the image of the end of a love affair, all punctuated by solos from the "band of four" - Kirkland, Marsalis, Cinelu, and Brown - while Kirkland also takes the lead on the wildly unbridled medley of "Bring On The Night" and "When The World Is Running Down, You Make The Best Of What's Still Around."

Campbell is in the rearguard, but when his turn comes, the Hendrix-esque "Little Wing," he asserts himself, throwing in some beautiful Beatles-esque phrasing. McDonald - her first solo album is coming out soon - supports Sting, adds colour and texture, dances with the blond man, sways her hips, and does her job perfectly, something that can't be said for Ceccarelli and Wormworth. But who notices, who listens to them?

You dance to 'We'll Be Together,' you're moved by 'Fragile,' you sway with delight to the tunes of 'Straight To My Heart,' 'King of Pain,' 'Nothing Like the Sun,' the title of her latest LP, 'Murder By Numbers,' 'One World (Not Three),' 'The Secret Marriage,' 'Sister Moon,' with the moon up there. Every word is carefully considered; Sting's writing, now more than ever, is made to last; it would work even just recited; the metaphors, in his mouth, are truthful.

The audience is captivated; he has the charisma of a thoroughbred artist, a man of integrity. "Rock Steady" and "Walking In Your Footsteps" are also eagerly digested and jealously guarded. The encore also features the romance "Caro Mio Bien," a signature tune by the great Enrico Caruso.

But the crowd demands, hopes for, and begs for the police to intervene. They want songs by The Police. And so comes "Don't Stand So Close To Me," almost unrecognizable in the 1986 remix, and, with just the acoustic guitar, the fabulous "Message In A Bottle."

She sings along with him, her throat tightening, as countless flames light up and thousands of hearts beat. In unison. Sting has sent the messages, inside and outside the bottles. It's up to us to keep them alive, care for them, make them a reality, a daily practice. So that one day, who knows, we don't find ourselves having to dance alone.

(c) Il Messaggero by Paolo Zaccagnini (thanks to Valeria Vanella)

Sting, like no other - With a triumphant concert, the Roman rock season begins. Thirty thousand applauded the Englishman dressed in white...

How long has it been since we've heard such a roar in a stadium? Perhaps since the last concert of last season here at the Flaminio stadium... Sting makes his entrance, solemn despite his shyness. While Minu Cinelu is pounding away on the percussion, it's the beginning of "Lazarus Heart." Sting is dressed in white, a radiant blond among the many blacks in his group: there's Dolette McDonald, the splendid backing singer capable of "covering" a thousand and more voices with just her own; there's young Branford Marsalis, the most elegant of them all in his beige gabardine suit, who every now and then forgets that he's one of the new hopes of young jazz and starts to fool around, jumping around like a rascal; There's bassist Tracy Wormworth, keyboardist Kenny Kirkland, Delmar Browm on synth, and further up, Minu Cinelu and drummer Jean Paul Ceccarelli, French, blond, blue-eyed, the only other white person. Outside, a group of fans who hadn't managed to get in suddenly throw stones, fortunately no one was injured. Meanwhile, the rain becomes more and more pouring.

"We'll Be Together" arrives, with the unforgettable "together" of Dolette's chorus crashing against the stadium's north stand; "Englishman in New York" and Sting picking up a shoe and saying "paninaro shoe," smelling it, making a disgusted face, and "I'm an Englishman in Rome." It ends with a heart-breaking sax solo interrupted for a moment by a heart-breaking chorus from the crowd, and Marsalis riffing on "Sister Moon." Then 'Rock Steady' as the lights expertly flood the audience; 'Bring On The Night' may be a song about death (Sting discovered this when he decided to dedicate it to Gil Evans, the day after his passing), but the audience must sing it, and they sing it, illuminated by the white spotlights, thousands of arms raised, more than thirty thousand people outstretched, agitated toward Sting's clear eyes, toward that sweet, yet wicked, gaze that flashes out from the two large screens at the sides of the stage. 

He dances alone, performing comical choreography with Dolette, Marsalis, and Cinelu. 'Still My Beating Heart', 'Consider Me Gone', 'Russians', 'Little Wing', and finally a tribute previously only given to the Roman audience: 'Every Breath You Take', from Sincronicità, his last album with the Police. The sound check in the afternoon had been almost entirely devoted to rehearsals for this splendid love song. By 5:00, crowds were already crowded outside, listening. Finally, around 6:00, the first rush across the lawn of this rock season, the first toward the stage, toward that altar awaiting the white priest, an altar where each time a rite is celebrated, always the same yet always different. Three hours before the concert begins, the waiting activities are the same as always: the Frisbee, the ball, the banners are set up next to those of Coca-Cola, the official sponsor of Sting's Italian tour. The first to be unfurled says: "Nothing like Sting," nothing like Sting.

And nothing is like the pleasure of seeing that the rock audience is still here, faithful to their appointment with the music, with the sun having just set to rest as Sting begins to sing. Let's hope that by starting the concerts after sunset and ending before midnight, the lady of Parioli will no longer complain about the noise like last year. How can the lady looking out from that elegant balcony not be moved by Sting singing "They Dance Alone" while the two screens at the sides of the stage display images of the mothers of the disappeared, of the courageous women of Palza de Mayo whom he truly invited to be near him during one of his South American concerts? How can her heart not ache at the sight of so many flames forming a single blaze in a packed stadium? Flames that go out and rekindle until the end, until the ritual ends and Sting bids farewell to the Roman audience in Italian. Last time, he promised to learn our language to understand and be understood. He kept his promise.

(c) La Repubblica by Laura Putti (thanks to Valeria Vanella)