Summer: 2012

Sting at EDP Cool Jazz...

10,000 people (organizers' figures) packed the Oeiras Stadium to see a fit Sting. Learn more about the show, which lasted about two hours and featured 20 songs for the Portuguese audience.

With several concerts spread across different days and venues, and generally aimed at an adult audience, EDP Cool Jazz isn't your typical summer festival. But in the cozy Oeiras Stadium, late on a weekend afternoon, a certain summer spirit is already palpable: children running around with ice cream, several families mingling, and a friendly atmosphere on the carpeted lawn. At 9 p.m., the festival's program officially begins with the first part of Sting's set, performed by James Walsh. Once the frontman of the British band Starsailor, the singer now faces audiences awaiting his arrival armed only with guitar, drums, and an electric piano. The songs, sometimes from his solo album and sometimes from the now deactivated Starsailor (on hold since 2009), vary little from one another - 'Tell Me It's Not Over', 'Precious Stolen Moments' and 'Lullaby' were some of the ones chosen for the trip to Oeiras - but Walsh's performance is not without courage and draws some applause from an audience where we glimpse some illustrious artists, such as Herman José.

Many also take advantage of the first part of the concert to have dinner: on this first night of EDP Cool Jazz, hot dogs and pizza were the menu options, if purchased inside the stadium. And, despite the band's Wikipedia profile claiming that Starsailor have sold three million records, James Walsh introduces the band's hit, "Four To The Floor," with a somewhat confident "if you know any song, it's this one."

"I'd never even heard of that stadium," we hear someone comment during the intermission between James Walsh and Sting's sets. I wouldn't be the only one living in ignorance, we say, and the truth is that Oeiras Stadium proved to be a good option for shows of this size, combining two virtues: the capacity to hold a large crowd and a certain intimacy, or family-like quality, typical of stadiums that are (very) far from gigantic. "Who brought the letters?", we heard a spectator ask his friends, before sitting on the floor, while, next to him, a Sting fan greeted another with the observation: "Now we'll only see each other at rock!"

Right on schedule, and just seconds after the other musicians took their places, Sting took the stage, to the delight of the crowd, which, by 10 p.m., had already filled the stadium (organizers estimate 10,000 tickets sold). In the competition of rock stars who look good for their age, our host tonight, tanned and smiling, will certainly be at the front of the pack. At 60, the Englishman on board the Back To Bass tour—after all, the instrument that made him famous—not only looks good, but also sounds good. In the first song, "All This Time," with much of the audience engrossed in recording the moment with their cell phones, Gordon Sumner's elastic voice dances in our ears with the vivacity of bygone times. And, speaking of bygone times, it was impossible not to think of the influence the former Police frontman had on shaping the vocal chords of Adam Levine of Maroon 5, or even Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, who is often credited with being the "godfather" of Paul Simon.

"Thank you very much, good evening - I'm Sting," the star of the night thanked him at the end of the first song, in Portuguese. "I'm very happy to be here with you." The brief speech gave rise to the first of many ovations of the night: songs like 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic', one of the most infectious in the Police's repertoire, and the hugely popular 'Englishman in New York', performed immediately after, generated enthusiastic choirs (in the case of "Englishman...", the popular singers' singing skills were even heard before Sting's), repeating the euphoria in the songs that most spoke to the hearts of those present: the sequence 'Fields of Gold' / 'Message in a Bottle' was one of those moments, also proving Sting's vocal range, capable of going from a whisper - which he also used in the celebrated 'Shape of My Heart' - to the howls that, on a half-clouded night, so well served the melodic acrobatics of 'Seven Days' or 'King of Pain' (and, in this song in particular, we found ourselves thinking how obvious Gotye's affiliation is in the hit 'Somebody That I Used To Know', which curiously played at the stadium before the show).

Before the show began, Sting asked—through a third party, of course—the photographers present, including the BLITZ photojournalist, to sign a contract pledging to abide by certain conditions. One of them was to photograph not just him, but also the "musicians of the band and/or orchestra." The request makes sense when, throughout the two-hour show, we realize the freedom Sting gives his widely praised musicians. Without discrediting any of the others (Dominic Miller on guitar—including Portuguese guitar; David Sancious, formerly of the E Street Band, on keys; Vinnie Colauita on drums; and Jo Lawry on backing vocals), it was violinist Peter Tickell who ended up surprising, "filling the eye," performing veritable solos and "duels" with other instruments, thrilling the audience at the front of the stage and bringing freshness to songs like "Seven Days," performed in a syncopated version, or the jazzier "Driven To Tears."

The audience's attention wasn't always maintained, however, but Sting was always astute enough to, with a simple gesture, invite/convince the crowd to join him with applause and well-timed choruses. In "I Hung My Head," which Johnny Cash revisited in the American Recordings saga, the intensity of the final stretch almost called for a gospel choir, or at least a soul choir—but, unlike what happened on the US tour, the artist didn't reference the Man in Black's version of the theme from "Mercury Falling" (1996). Also, "Love Is Stronger Than Justice," from "Ten Summoner's Tales" (1993), exudes a light country groove that the paying audience proved less receptive to.

For the lightning encores (the musicians would leave the stage for mere seconds), Sting and the band saved several sure-fire hits: "King of Pain," "Every Breath You Take," and "Roxanne" were practically inescapable, but let's highlight "Desert Rose," a good example of the relative renewal some of these songs have undergone. Thanks largely to Peter Tickell's violin work, "Desert Rose," originally sung as a duet with Algerian Cheb Mami, retained its African aura but also gained some gypsy-festival touches that made the 1999 song one of the highlights of Sting's concert at the opening of EDP Cool Jazz 2012.

(c) Blitz by Lia Pereira