Sting's Back to Bass tour is in Vancouver for three shows at The Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
Here's the skinny on the first show from last night.
Review: Sting
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
When: Thursday Night
Sting has done a lot of experimentation in his 25 years as a solo artist. He began as something like a punk but when he broke up with his band The Police, he ran into the arms of jazz legends rather than rock gods.
His literary lyrics and heavy use of world beats made him the intellectual's choice of early 80s pop music--a sort of thinking man's Phil Collins. And like Collins, Sting has done his fair share of soundtracks, including a little Disney.
In the past few years he has dabbled in lute music for his album Songs From the Labyrinth and most recently toured with a full orchestra. All this variation has made for a strange discography.
The Back to Bass tour that brings him to Vancouver this time around, however, has been billed as a straight up rock show, an unadorned retrospective of his long career.
So understandably nostalgia is heavy at Queen Elizabeth Theatre as the crowd filters in for the sold-out first night of his three show run.
The age range spans his career as completely as the expected setlist--parents with teenaged kids who couldn't have been born when Sting first reached his ascendancy. (It's worth noting that my own first stadium show was Sting at the now demolished Winnipeg Arena)
"I get the feeling there won't be any reefer smells," remarks one disappointed-sounding older fan.
By 8:15, the room is chanting for the band to get going.
Sting is lithe-looking with a clean-shaven head, a white t-shirt and jeans when he takes the stage with that beloved bass. He and his five-piece backing band hop straight into "All this Time" and the crowd is all smiles and bobbing heads (with more than a few receding hairlines) despite a few sound hiccups early on.
He takes a moment to salute the venue's patron monarch (he is still English, after all) and then introduces his band with some very witty stage banter.
"Musicians get too old and decrepit to go on the road so I've very shrewdly hired Mr Miller's son," he quips, referring to his longtime guitarist Dominic Miller whose son Rufus has joined the band for the tour.
He follows with a rendition of the Police hit "Every little thing she does is magic" that features a crowd sing-along encouraged by house lights that brighten during that famous "way-ohoh" chorus.
Two fiddles back him up for a heavy (though still lighter than the recording) "Demolition Man" played by Peter Tickell and backup vocalist Jo Lawry
The band takes a small departure From the tour's setlist with a mellow rendition of "I Hung My Head."
"One of my hobbies is to attempt write country music," Sting explains afterward. He figures he was vindicated because Johnny Cash covered that one.
This won't be the last time Sting charms the audience with his banter. He goes on to explain that his song writing process often starts with the music. He arranges it, puts it on his iPod and then lives with it for a while. For "Stolen Car" he imagined a car thief that was psychic and can see the whole lives of his victims just by sitting in their seats. The song has a sultry feel. It's performance ends with his backup vocalist coming forward for a musical theatre style duet.
Sting gives each member of his band a chance to shine. "Driven to Tears" brings out a squealing guitar solo from the elder Miller and "Fields of Gold" features a gentle acoustic solo from the younger Miller.
The tone stays up and poppy until "Ghost Story" from 1999's Brand New Day which Sting introduces as a story inspired by his long passed away father. The song is a slightly uncomfortable mix of English folk ballad and pop song but it seems to strike a chord with the audience.
He picks it up immediately with a bluesy rendition of "Heavy Cloud (No Rain)" from 1993's Ten Summoner's Tales.
He draws the night together with biographical detail, proclaiming the secret to a long marriage (vulnerability) and reminiscing about his favorite musical (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers).
For the last song of the regular set, white lights that have played behind the band for most of the night bend forward and throw kaleidoscope circles across the far balconies for "Never Coming Home." The fiddler returns for a final ear-splitting solo, his long bangs in his eyes as Sting eggs him on with a bend at the waist bass player groove dance.
It only takes moments for the whole band to return for an encore with the Middle Eastern inspired "Dessert Rose." Sting wiggles his hips to the fiddles, sending the women up front into a frenzy and drawing the theatre back to its feet.
It's an odd transition back into the Police catalogue for "Every Move You Make" but that doesn't seem to phase any of the dancers. He's ticking all the right boxes and doing it with vigor.
Not to be cut off early, he races back onstage after moments of applause for a rocking version of "Next to You" from all the way back in 1980.
Finally he appears with a small acoustic guitar and finishes up with a stripped down version of "Message in a Bottle." The crowd fills in the chorus and claps as he fills in over top with the alternate whisper-wail that has become his trademark, everyone travelling back in time together over more than 25 years of pop music.
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