Summoner's Tales: 1993/95

Simply Sting, simply music...

Given his oft-deserved reputation as the pop star who put the capital 'p' in Pratt, sorry, Pretension, it is good to report that Sting's latest Australian sojourn was notably free of sermonising and self-importance. Aside from the suggestion in the tour program that he actually invented world music (yes and Bob Dylan invented Techno), there was nothing to cringe at.

Keeping up with the '90s trend, Sting presented a show based on paring back, on performance rather than theatricality, on directness and elegant simplicity.

Nothing was allowed to intrude with the presentation of the music. The lighting was carefully subdued, the stage decorated with a few cut-out geometric shapes and a series of back curtains, and the delivery devoid of pomp and bombast.

In front of an audience with an age range of about 30 years (start at 20 and count up), the close-cropped Sting, in waistcoat, black trousers and boots, spent much of the night deferring to the talents of his small, tight band.

No 16-piece outfit here. Just four people: guitar, bass, drums and keyboards, a currently unfashionable, but extraordinarily flexible, line-up.

In a two-hour show, Sting traipsed about his 15-year career, from a dubbed-out 'Roxanne' through to a fragmentary and barely recognisable 'Demolition Man', which he threw in as an unexpected middle eight for 'King Of Pain'.

Given his love of the lateral take-off in the middle of his own songs, it's no surprise that he also chose, with admirable ambitiousness, to cover the Beatles' difficult 'A Day In The Life'.

Surprisingly accurate for a line-up without the full palette of sounds (ie. an orchestra), it found its mark after threatening to derail early, and if it was perhaps too faithful, it was a lot better than the almost indescribably miscued version of the same band's 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun' attempted by American band The Breeders at the recent Big Day Out.

Though his songwriting mindset is more pop-oriented than at any time since the Police, the appeal of Sting's music is that it manages to be populist and radio-friendly without becoming anodyne and featureless.

His broad interest in music, from his early love of reggae to his mid-period jazz dabblings and back again, has encouraged him to stretch the envelope enough to remain interested, but not so far that he sacrifices his audience.

It has also enabled him to subjugate his ego enough to put together a band of players whose ability might to other people appear intimidating.

Dominic Miller (who has played with The Pretenders, Level 42, Paul Young and World Party) shone whenever he picked up the acoustic guitar, his electrical work accomplished if less expressive.

Vinnie Colaiuta (whose resume includes Frank Zappa, Joni Mitchell, Madonna, Ray Charles, Barbra Streisand, George Benson, Peter Gabriel, Sinead O'Connor and Michael Jackson) chipped in with a great monologue in one song and held many arrangements together, particularly later in the show as they grew more adventurous and drifted into less charted territory.

But if there was a star of the evening, it was keyboardist David Sancious, formerly a member of the E Street Band and a studio hand for Carlos Santana, and Aretha Franklin, among others. Taking most of the solos, he brought warm, infectiously playful jazz and R&B textures to the evening.

For the audience, the beauty came in watching the four musicians actually playing together, watching and listening to each other. There was the feeling,. increasingly rare in the pop arena, that they had not rehearsed and played every song into the ground. The familiar sense of the mechanical was absent. That alone is enough reason to give thanks.

(c) Sydney Morning Herald by Jon Casimir