Sting: My Songs Tour: International

Stadspark Live – festival report...

Twenty years ago, on June 2, 1999, The Rolling Stones delivered a legendary performance in Groningen's Stadspark. A year later, Tina Turner made an appearance, but after that, things went quiet in the city in terms of major international artists. For the music lover, therefore, something definitely took precedence over Groningen for a long time, and that had to change. That is why the brand-new Stadspark Live festival was created! After the already fairly full festival grounds recovered from a collective heart attack caused by presenter Bert Visscher opening the day a little too loudly and unexpectedly, it was up to Daniël Lohues to provide the musical kick-off for the first edition of Stadspark Live. The artist from Drenthe has long been seen only in theaters, but a successful club tour in late 2018 means that performances on festival grounds are also planned for this summer. Great, because Lohues still has plenty of rock in him, as became apparent during the well-thought-out set in which a number of Skik classics also popped up. A perfect opener!

A somewhat oddity on the Stadspark Live lineup is Ronnie Flex. Undoubtedly chosen to attract a younger audience as well, but somehow it still feels a bit out of place amidst the mature pop of the other acts. However, it must be said: the rapper proves to be an excellent entertainer, despite the fact that, by his own admission, performing at half past two in the afternoon felt very early. His band Deuxperience plays very well, and the version of BLØF’s *Omarm* is the first massive sing-along moment of the day. Actually a perfect performance, were it not that the music really isn't our cup of tea.

For some reason, the festival organizers also really wanted to include cabaret on the lineup, so Alex Ploeg gets to tell a few jokes. Now, it has often been shown elsewhere that this usually backfires on a festival (main) stage: people with a beer on the grass simply don't listen well when someone is talking into the microphone. On top of that, Ploeg is hard to hear, and his ‘body shaming’ jokes are needlessly dated in 2019. A miss! Later in the day, Arjen Lubach has the same problem, by the way, with the difference that his mini-version of *Zondag Met Lubach*, including the over-the-top opening number, *is* funny.

Fortunately, a lot is made up for between the two comedians when Tom Odell takes the stage. Although the man behind the band has the fewest hits to fall back on of all the acts at Stadspark Live, he still manages to hold the audience's attention from start to finish with his Elton John-esque pop. Not least because of his charismatic presence, incidentally. And such a strongly executed cover of Piano Man is, of course, nothing short of a masterstroke at a festival.

With the sun still shining brightly, there is nothing more pleasant than a dose of ska and reggae with The Specials. The band doesn't quite get the attention it deserves, and that seems to bother frontman Terry Hall considerably, but as background music, the whole thing works excellently. Highlight: The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum, which was once recorded by Specials spin-off Fun Boy Three and was given new life earlier this year on the album Encore. A disappointment, however, is that hits like Too Much Too Young and Ghost Town are completely missing.

Anouk has enough well-known songs to fill her entire set, and she does so with verve. The opening number Girl comes as a true surprise (being ten minutes early and not announced by presenter Bert Visscher), but this seems to underscore the ambition of this professional artist to completely overwhelm the audience. She succeeds brilliantly, even when a more than impressive moment of calm is incorporated with Lost. Moreover, Anouk seems to be genuinely enjoying it, judging by the smile that regularly stretches from ear to ear. And the audience feels the same way.

The headliner for the day is Sting, and thanks to the re-recorded album My Songs, we were already somewhat hoping for many hits. And we get them: an extremely precisely balanced set alternates rousing songs with moments of calm, with a remarkably large proportion of The Police songs. Versions of Message In A Bottle and Walking On A Moon, for example, are wonderfully faithful to the original, and that actually applies to everything played during the hour-and-a-half performance. Sting briefly reminisces about an early Police performance in Tweede Exloërmond (1977!), and it is likely no coincidence that he brings things full circle by closing with Next To You, the opening track of the band's debut album.

Stadspark Live ultimately sold out completely and was clearly organized by a highly experienced team. Unique

(c) Lust for Life