With Sting, from the Gare Saint-Lazare to the Zénith in Lille...
In the album "My Songs," he revisits his career with The Police and solo. Sunday night's concert allowed the audience to travel through forty years of songs, which, whether recent or older, evoke all our personal stories.
Having injured his shoulder following a bad fall, Sting had someone replace him on bass.
It was October. The year 1976. Not far from the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris. Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers, and Sting shared the same room. In a hotel, where you'd meet girls with light thighs. "Belles de nuit," as they were called. The Police scoured the trendy clubs, but the group was still struggling to make a living.
It was in this atmosphere of early morning sorrow that Sting wrote Roxanne. The story of a prostitute. He gave her that name simply because there was a poster of Cyrano de Bergerac in the hotel lobby. In the work of Edmond Rostand, whom Sting particularly appreciates, Roxane (with only one n) is Cyrano's cousin.
Sting kicks off Sunday's concert with Roxanne. Just after explaining to the audience at the Zénith de Lille why he's wearing his arm in a sling. Injured in the shoulder following a bad fall, he won't be able to scratch. Blimey.
Sting without a guitar! Wouldn't that be the promise of reading a Tintin comic without Snowy or enjoying a baba without rum? Well, no. Everything is perfectly arranged. The album My Songs, which took him on tour, covered both the Police years and his solo career. The same was true at the Zénith. Fields of Gold, Whenever I Say Your Name, Shape of My Heart… And on the Police side: King of Pain, Every Breath You Take, Walking of the Moon… A song magically blended with a cover of Bob Marley's Get Up Stand Up.
A British rock icon, Sting never stopped building bridges between punk and new wave. Between continents too, with the sublime Desert Rose and the cult classic Englishman in New York.
Among the last little moments of happiness, a bit like the piece of nougatine you pick off a wedding cake, was Russians. Sting had gotten used to not performing it any more. The moment was all the more striking.
(c) La Voix du Nord
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