Sting gives drab year new hope - Singer stamps 1991 with life-affirming concert...
A rock'n'roll singer riding in on a white steed-yeah, that's an image Sting would approve.
Frankly, 1991 had been a virtual bust for live music as an event until a lean, black-clad Sting pulled 14,000 fans into the Forum and put his personal stamp on a 3-month-old new year. Suddenly, where there had been dire mutterings of the death of the large-scale rock concert, there was a densely packed arena of expectant fans and a loose, confident singer preaching music as celebration of the life force and rescuing a music scene from terminal boredom.
The buzz outside the Forum was palpable and electric at 8 p.m. last night as the last stragglers wrangled for tickets to the year's first star-crossed concert. Scalpers wrung their hands and pushed their bleary eyes into desperate faces as a DJ pumped songs down Atwater Ave. from his mobile noise booth.
Inside, opening band Concrete Blonde was crunching through a set of dark-cloaked L.A. vampire rock. The crowd buzzed and clapped and waited patiently.
We're in mid-recession here, and the effect of the economic downturn has not been lost on fans, promoters and critics alike. What this year needed was a defining presence, a glimmer of stardom and the sheer pleasure of music that is a part of the common language.
Enter Sting the teaser, striding out to introduce a percussionist he'd met named Vinx, and promising to return in 10 minutes with his band.
Enter Sting the crowd-pleaser, opening his show with 'All This Time', a deceptively bouncy hit about death and anger and eventual liberation, and bring on the screams of a crowd that knew the genuine article.
The four-man band was downsized from previous Sting outings, and what it lost in texture sax-man Branford Marsalis was missed as only an artist of his stature can be - it made up for with open-ended jamming and the feeling that anything was possible.
Sting's tour and album, 'The Soul Cages', have gathered mixed reviews thus far, but the man has never failed to lift a crowd in Montreal. The slate-gray skies must have reminded him of his native Newcastle, because he was utterly at ease and as generous as a professional musician with a set list can be.
He introduced 'Mad About You' with an abridged version of the story of King David, funked through 'Jeremiah Blues' and followed 'Why Should I Cry' with a call for requests.
Cue the signature siren vocal to 'Roxanne', and pandemonium.
Guitarist Dominic Miller and keyboardist David Sancious (an old Springsteen sideman) had acres of room to spread out all night. Sting clearly likes musicians and was more interested in jamming and following songs where they led than adhering to the vinyl versions of 'Bring on the Night' and 'When the World Is Running Down'.
'King of Pain' was an early highlight. As is his wont, Sting took from the crowd as well as he gave. The middle of the show was devoted to a triptych of ballads - 'The Wild Wild Sea', 'The Soul Cages' and 'When the Angels Fall', songs that chase his departed father's ghost. The crowd listened, so he rewarded them with 'Purple Haze', 'Message in a Bottle', If You Love Somebody and a slowed-down 'Every Breath You Take'. In the ugly year 1991, you take your pleasures where you can. After all, he's the only Sting we've got.
(c) Montreal Gazette by Mark LePage
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