Summer: 2013

Sting brought his hits to Bucharest, in the "Back to Bass" formula...

British singer Sting ended his "Back to Bass" tour in Bucharest on Wednesday evening, under a "cloudy sky, but no rain", as one of his songs says, showing in his two-hour show at Romexpo that you can have fun with music even with decades and dozens of hits behind you.

Dressed in tight leather pants and a pristine white T-shirt, Sting appeared on stage at 8:45 p.m., 15 minutes before the time instinctively expected by fans. The show began with Swiss watch precision, with "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You", and continued with hits such as "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic", "Fields of Gold" and "Shape of My Heart".

Already in Bucharest for the fourth time, Sting has accustomed fans to his many facets as an artist. After coming to the Capital in 2009 with a project that only a music veteran can bring - Elizabethan music - and in 2011 he came to Constitution Square accompanied by a symphony orchestra, this time, Sting came with a bass and a group of exceptional instrumentalists, who demonstrated that the hits that millions of people hum can be both warm for the audience and attractive for the artists, even if it is for the "n"th time they sing them. Only Sting and his instrumentalists could have moved so naturally from The Police's fun hit "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" to extensive improvisations with piano and electric violin, to the sensual "Roxanne" - which did not remain on its megahit pedestal and was, once again, the subject of improvisation in front of several thousand fans -, as well as to one of the songs that once again left the audience breathless - "Every Breath You Take".

As usual, Sir Sting did not shy away from being "casual". He spoke in Romanian, shouted "louder!" to the fans below, asked "what are you doing?" and made sure that his concert was "Heavy Cloud No Rain" ("Cloudy, but no rain", n.r. ). The rain that he called for so many times in the lyrics of his songs came right after the last encore song - "Fragile".

On "Fragile", Sting did what he did in the other two hours of the concert - he showed that being number 1 in all the music charts does not mean losing your "base" and freshness. He started the last song of the concert with a "1-2-3", like on the first day of recording in his career, just as he treated the big songs, like jam sessions in a small club. Thus "Shape of My Heart", "Englishman in New York", "Desert Rose", "Message in a Bottle" became - like their sisters in the pantheon of "Sting's Songs Everyone Recognizes", for a while, in the middle of the concrete buildings of Bucharest - new and unique.

The concert in Bucharest concluded the "Back to Bass" tour, which Sting began on May 30, in the United States of America, and which continued in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Russia and Italy.

Sting's concert was opened by Mike & The Mechanics and James Walsh.

Composer, performer, author, actor, activist - Sting was born in the English city of Newcastle, and in 1977 moved to London to form the band The Police, with Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers. The band released five albums, won six Grammy Awards, and in 2003 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Since 1985, Sting has released 13 solo albums. To mark the 25th anniversary of his career, Sting released "25 Years", a collector's box set, and the album "The Best Of 25 Years". "Sting 25," the free iPad app that won Best Design/Aesthetic at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, is available on iTunes and features footage from the artist's 60th birthday concert, plus interviews, photos, videos and more.

Sting has sold nearly 100 million albums, both solo and with The Police. As a solo artist, he has won 10 Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, an Emmy Award and has been nominated for three Academy Awards.

(c) Mediafax by Oana Ghita