MessageDavid Cheal reviews Sting at the Albert Hall In the days leading up to this concert, whenever I mentioned I was off to see Sting, the response was invariably the same: a curling of the lip, and an expression that bespoke either pity or disdain, or both. That's what Sting does to many people, and you can understand why, with his tantric sex boasts, his rainforest-saving antics, and his general demeanour of aren't-I-cleverness. And yet this is a man who has written and performed some solid-gold pop classics, mainly as the former linchpin of the Police, but also sporadically as a solo artist. He was responsible for one of the highlights of my gig-going career, a show at the Albert Hall about a decade ago that was electrifying from start to finish. So, uncool as it might be to say so, I'm actually a bit of a fan. This show, which, after the cancellation of his dates in Newcastle, Glasgow and Birmingham, turned out to be the opening night of his British tour, wasn't up there with the best of them, but it was still an absorbing and uplifting night, with Sting leading his as-always immaculate band on a trawl through his solo career, occasionally digging deeper into his Police years. The laryngitis that had caused him to abandon those shows was still in evidence: Roxanne, for instance, was performed largely as a dub version, with the audience filling in some of the gaps. He was clearly straining on Invisible Sun, too, but this didn't prevent it from being one of the show's highlights. His voice, though, sounded perfectly comfortable in the middle-register material that dominated the show - songs such as the soaring, passionate Inside, from his recent Sacred Love album, and the gorgeous key-shifting North African-flavoured Desert Rose. It's a tribute to the quality of his music that I paid little attention to the expensive-looking kit behind him - video screens that slid around, lighting gantries that went up and down a lot - and focused on the contributions of top-notch musicians such as keyboardist Jason Rebello, who duelled with Sting's bass on the obligatory instrumental workout, and guitarist Dominic Miller's colourful flourishes. Occasionally the show lost momentum, as on the bebop version of Walking on the Moon, but in the main this was a good, solid, satisfying and occasionally inspirational performance. © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004 Also, for the people down under, Redlands was launched onto the international entertainment stage on Saturday night with Australian icon John Farnham featuring in the first of the "Stars of Sirromet" concerts. According to organisers this is just the beginning. The "Stars of Sirromet" open air concerts at the Sirromet Winery at Mt Cotton will become regular events for the Redlands and already names such as Sting Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, Elton John and Neil Diamond, are being touted as up and coming concert artists. Cheers, StingUs-team www.stingus.net ----- Original Message ----- From: Jason Sheldon To: police@mailman.xmission.com Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 12:07 PM Subject: [Police] Albert Hall Any reviews on the Albert Hall gigs... anyone here make them? How did he sound? J. CD & DVD Replication, Custom Printed Recordable Media (inc. Offset Litho!) *** NEW for 2004 *** Visibile Watermarking Jason Sheldon Plexus Digital Solutions 292-294 Wolverhampton Road West, Bentley, Walsall, WS2 0DS United Kingdom Jason@digital-solutions.co.uk tel: fax: 0800 783 7628 0870 760 7654 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Police mailing list Police@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/police
