Sting: My Songs Tour: 2021 - 2023

Sting emerges victorious in Gran Canaria  from his leap back in time...

With a certain solemnity and armed with his inseparable bass, Sting (England, 1951) offered a leap back in time this Sunday in Gran Canaria (Spain), with a tour of the greatest hits of his career and that of The Police, and with an audience more than willing to get into the Delorean offered by the Englishman, who emerged victorious from his performance in front of more than 8,000 spectators.

The evening, the last in Spain of his "My Songs" tour, followed stops in Bilbao and Tenerife and had a special guest as the sun began to set in the Gran Canaria capital, right by the sea: Joe Sumner, Sting's son, served as the opening act before the concert to get the audience a little more prepared for the British star's appearance. Were it not for the aura that surrounds rock stars, he might have passed for a tourist strolling along Las Canteras beach during peak season.

Thus, shortly after 10 p.m., Sting came out determined to sting the island audience with an unbeatable trio of hits: "Message in a Bottle," "Englishman in New York," and "Everything Little Thing She Does is Magic." "I'm very happy to be in Gran Canaria," he said in shy Spanish.

The Briton took it upon himself to demonstrate, as is the case with many members of the rock aristocracy, that age and Sting go hand in hand. During the nearly two-hour concert, during which he moved from one side to the other—he forsook the microphone stand and embraced the headset mic, Britney Spears style—his 71 years were nowhere to be seen, and he performed The Police classics and his own hits without sacrificing a certain intensity.

After the first three sets, the show moved into somewhat grittier and more unfamiliar territory, featuring a good number of the main songs from the Briton's solo career, including "Loving You," "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You," "Fields of Gold," "Shape of My Heart," and "Mad About You," which, like "Desert Rose," brought the exotic echoes of world music with which Sting has so often experimented.

In this section, there's only one notable absence: "I Hung My Head," the western-turned-song that Johnny Cash made his own in the late 1990s and which Sting has left out of his three concerts in Spain, although he often performs it in other venues.

After an hour of near-introspection, it was time to bring out The Police's old songs, which still work like clockwork. Thus, "Walking on the Moon" and, especially, "So Lonely," with a snippet of Bob Marley's "Everything is Gonna Be Alright," brought the audience back into the concert, with Sting proving himself well-versed in the tricks needed—easy choruses and handclaps—to inject intensity into the fans.

In the final part, Sting got serious, and the quintessential workhorses arrived, such as "King of Pain" and, above all, "Roxanne" and "Every Breath You Take," by far the most celebrated by the Gran Canaria audience.

And to finish, the haven of peace that is "Fragile," a memory, and a final sting, about the fragility of human beings and the invincible passage of time. "It will continue to rain again and again, like tears of a star, like tears of a star. It will continue to rain again and again, Saying how fragile we are, how fragile we are."

(c) Pulso