Sting's ecstasy in the music...

The former Police man captivated the 10,000 people who packed Montesarchio with a two-hour concert. From rock-reggae to Algerian pop, all the colours of his music. With an exceptional band.

"How to Play Rock Extraordinarily": a treatise should be written on the live performance Sting gave the other night in Piazza Umberto I in Montesarchio, and made available to all those who are just starting out in the music world. A concert that, unfortunately, we journalists only heard and barely saw through the tubular structures of the technical facility and the mixing desk, given the unfortunate decision to position ourselves right behind it.

The former Police man demonstrated how high his standards are, how "modern music" defies the rules, and how great artists are increasingly less easily pigeonholed into genres and labels.

His music no longer has any equivalents or benchmarks: it's Sting's music, and that's it. And this is one of the strengths of the greats.

The sound he proposes is the exact transformation of his "visible world" and his inner universe into sounds.

Like few others, in recent years, Sting has been able to break down the dividing walls between genres, without ever losing his own identity.

Thus, starting with the first notes of "1000 Years," continuing with one of the "freedom" anthems of the '80s generation, "Set Them Free Ile," and "After The Rain Has Fallen," the 49-year-old Newcastle composer takes the 10,000 people in the area by the hand, leading them through his sonic world of reggae 'n' roll, jazz, and pop...

This is the essence of his "Brand New Day" (which has sold 300,000 copies in Italy alone), where echoes of Miles Davis and Gil Evans overlap with medieval Gregorian chants, Algerian pop, and American country music.

The sound is clear, the band (Dominic Miller, Manu Katchè, Jason Rebello, Chris Botti, Mark Eldridge, Machan Taylor, and Darryl Tookes), its "armed wing," perfect in every nuance, generates a disconcerting density and fullness that captures, almost hypnotizes, the human crowd that has invaded every inch of the square of the Sannio town. The view is evocative and moving. People everywhere, orderly and polite.

Twenty thousand hands raised to the sky to accompany the rhythm of the songs, almost as if trying to capture shreds of energy from a magical evening that many will remember.

'All This Time,' 'Perfect Love,' 'Mad About You,' 'Seven Days,' the thrilling 'Fields of Gold,' 'Tomorrow We'll See' (featuring a stunning feedback guitar solo by Dominic Miller), and the acclaimed 'Brand New Day' chase each other in a whirlwind of sound.

Sting's voice hasn't been affected by time; it's the same as ever.

With just a few minutes to 11 PM, the zenith has been reached: the first notes of 'Roxanne' soar through the air.

The emotion is so strong it takes your breath away. The 'ghost' of the Police resurfaces from our memories. 'Every Breath You Take' and 'Every Little Thing She Does is Magic' bring to mind albums like 'Outlandos d'amour', 'Regatta de blanc', 'Ghost in the Machine', 'Synchronicity'... the noblest history of rock.

It's a shame that the planned 'Message in a Bottle' - which was supposed to close the evening - wasn't performed at the end, perhaps due to time constraints.

Two hours of music.

Too little, because the desire to dream in the streets is still strong, as is the desire to continue together, a journey that has taken us many times beyond the 'Pillars of Hercules' of the world.'

Her tour will continue in Europe until June 17th (the final stop will be in Nimes, France) before moving to the United States, where she will play only in amphitheatres and arenas.

The debut is scheduled for June 24th in Camden, New Jersey; The final date is September 8th, in Virginia Beach, concluding a true physical tour de force.

Meanwhile, in Japan, a mini album of remixes of songs from 'Brand New Day' is about to be released, while tomorrow, the Pangaea label will release the soundtrack to the film 'Dolphins', which includes the new song 'I Need You Like This Hole In My Head' in addition to other well-known tracks.

But the musician also previously found time to shoot the film 'The Living Sea', continuing to fuel his long-standing passion for the world of cinema.

(c) Cronache di Napoli by Carmine Aymone (thanks to Valeria Vanella)

Sting, off on his new tour with send-ups of the star system...

Sting yesterday opened his European tour in a small region of Sanioa. The sole concert for Southern Italy was the one in Montesarchio, a country seat of around 14 thousand souls on the slopes of the Taburno, in the province of Benevento. This evening the ex-Police bassist plays at Pesaro and tomorrow he will be at Casalecchio, in the suburbs of Bologna. A European tour articulated by a series of satiric commercials, where the singer's face appears stamped on toast slices and little pudding moulds.

Yesterday evening 10 thousand youth, who had arrived from every region of the South, filled up the village square for the concert organised by the local government. The mayor of Montesarchio went in January to the Filaforum of Assago to ask the singer personally to play at the regional musical review, which last year had hosted Ray Charles and the preceding year Pat Metheny.

Sting's show is reworked with respect to the preceding tour. The set, with a slight rearrangement, is a lengthy trip through the Police numbers and selections from his latest disk 'Brand New Day'. The band has been adjusted with the debut of a new vocalist. He is one, but worth two, said Sting's son. In the current formation there are Dominic Miller, Chris Botti, Jason Rebello, Mark Eldridge, Machan Taylor and Darryl Tookes.

Sting did not want to meet anyone. He stayed closeted in his dressing-room. The only two exceptions allowed by the singer were a local student, who made him a gift of 10 CDs of Neopolitan music, and a girl about a thesis in English literature on his lyrics.

'But this place is very stimulating,' Sting informed us, 'and I enjoy the idea of playing in this square.' At the end of the final number, Sting rushed to the car which took him at the airport, leaving disappointed tens of fans waiting for him beneath the Vesuvius Hotel of Naples.

The long concert began after a warm-up act of about thirty minutes given over to Niccolo Fabi, who will open all the Italian concerts by the ex-Police bassist. 'The English organisers gave me a 45-minute slot,' said the Roman singer/songwriter, 'but I will perform only for 30, this is not an audience come to listen to me', Sting mounted the stage and opened the show: '1000 Years', 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free', 'After the Rain has Fallen'.

The concert was a long dolly-ride through the richly evocative twenty-year catalogue and the closing was in honour of the Police. The celebration ended with a series of encores beginning with 'Every Breath You Take' and climaxing with 'Message in a Bottle'.

As of yesterday more than 80 thousand tickets had been sold for the seven dates of the Italian tour which can be considered virtually sold out. After the Pesaro and Bologna concerts the tour will continue on the 10th of May at the Palastampa in Turin, on the 12th at the Bolzano Palaonda, on the 19th at the Park of Le Cascine in Florence, to wind up on the 20th of May at the Verona Arena.

(c) Il Corriere Della Sera by Biagio Coscia / translated by Diane Villani

In the ancient burgh of Montesarchio he carried away 10 thousand spectators...

For Torino, Bolzano and Bologna there are still some tickets available, but not many. At the end of these 7 concerts, it is calculated that Sting will have collected around 100 thousand spectators: not a bad wicket for an artist who does not have very many pieces suitable for singing along, in a concert which nevertheless takes on tour through Italy almost his entire career, from present days back to the time of the Police. Nowadays, Sting's fame is bound up more with his polished persona than with his repertoire: at his pleasure, a little for the appeal of the confessed Tantric-sex exploits; a little for the public-spirited commitment to various and praiseworthy causes; a little because he is handsome (so blond and bronzed), a little because he is always so elegant in his Armani; and a little also because with that property near Pisa where he often lives, nowadays he is considered almost one of our own.

The opening of the tour at Montesarchio - twenty-odd kilometres from Benevento, in a beautiful square of an ancient burgh crammed with 10 thousand people from the whole of Central and South Italy - gave a jolt of humanity to the star, who appeared taken with the unusual setting, with the people in the balconies, some red banners (from Ferrari) and the relaxed country atmosphere. And so the rock came to the crowd: he showed off all his Italian in the introductions and the acknowledgments, and working the bass solidly launched into a series of 22 pieces which never so much as now recall the rhythmic memory of the Police, whose pervading influence reappears when you least expect it, and after the first selections in the set which have nothing to do with that period, the persuasive dirge 'A Thousand Years', 'Set Them Free', then also 'Every Thing She Does is Magic'.

There will be exasperations also in this direction: so much so, that the much-acclaimed 'Englishman in New York' begins to seem like a cry of wolf. For the whole evening, the rediscovery of his roots alternates with the jazzy feel of his second creative period, with the main protagonists the percussion and above all the elegant and edgy trumpet of Christopher Botti, in the much applauded 'Mad About You' as well as in 'Bourbon Street' for which the stage lights up with luminous balls which recall the lamps of New Orleans; often however, to tell the truth, that trumpet tries with good grace to bring distinction to other pieces whose musical durability we have trouble understanding, such as 'Seven Days' and 'Fill Her Up'.

But this is Sting, a man who knows how to cunningly blend the good (Brand New Day) with the pointless (the little march 'I'm So Happy'), who often fills up his disks with grown-up signature pop. The background of the enormous stage is covered vertically at the beginning with white veils; elegant projections of multi-coloured lights emphasise the various moments. Among the most memorable, the audience, which does not seem totally caught up in Sting-fever, fires up with older pieces such as 'Roxanne', which becomes a very long and exciting extended rock that finally gives the guitar and keyboards something to do; and naturally with 'Bring on the Night' and 'Every Breath You Take'. Whoever was hoping for the classic finale of 'Message in a Bottle' was left disappointed: the evening closed on 'Fragile'.

Previously, Manu Katche had rapped briskly on 'Perfect Love Gone Wrong', and the vocalist Russ Irwin had tried in vain to support 'Desert Rose', which without Cheb Mami from the disk loses the delicious Maghreb flavour. While the applause was still going strong, Sting then went back to sleep at home in Tuscany in his Piper, to commute like a poor man.

(c) La Stampa by Marinella Venegoni / translated by Diane Villani

Sting, music is adventure...

From Hawaii to Montesarchio. From the green waters of the Ocean to the foothills of Mount Taburno. Having finished the world tour with an opportune date and a long vacation in the middle of the Pacific, a Sting tanned and even more blond from the sun last night fronted the pit of this small centre of the Benevento region overlooked by a Bourbon tower and a mediaeval fortress.

Passageways through the main square of the village blocked up, crowded with nearly ten thousand spectators. For a show with the standard of a 'must-see', almost an extension of the ex-Policeman's way of being, of dressing and of appearing in public. Hardly any concession to stage effects: on the large bare stage, framed in black and with a few hanging cloths the colour of mother-of-pearl, at the beginning there is only the light-show to give movement to the scene. Then this last, very gently, comes to life: huge white umbrellas which were leaning against the black backdrop, a moon and two illuminated stars, gradually something else. For the rest, the great music speaks for itself, especially the music committed to the recent work entitled 'Brand New Day' (he performed seven of the ten pieces), but also drawing heavily from his previous solo works, and without leaving out a well-deserved homage to the Seventies roots starting with the splendid 'Roxanne' and 'Bring on the Night' in which the catchy rock of the Police could be heard again.

He is winning, Sting, absolutely cordial: he makes his greetings and thank-yous in Italian (learned during sojourns in the 'Chiantishire' of Figline Valdarno. The band (also introduced to the audience in Italian) is well run-in: Sting is accompanied on the drums by Manu Katche, by Dominic Miller on the guitar, Jason Rebello on keyboards, Marc Eldridge on synth, Christopher Botti on trumpet, and the fine Russ Irwin assists on vocals which will leave no one missing Cheb Mami for the compelling and splendid 'Desert Rose'. The concert begins and Sting slings on the guitar for the solid rock of 'A Thousand Years', also the opening piece on the new disk, then imposes a first leap back in time with '(If You Love Somebody) Set Them Free' from the beginnings of his successful solo venture. He lets go the guitar and takes up his bass, not to leave it again. Then come the new song 'After the Rain Has Fallen' and afterwards 'We'll Be Together' from the album 'Nothing Like the Sun', while the musical style slides inexorably towards jazz.

The middle part of the show jogs the memory again with 'All This Time' and 'Mad About You' from 'The Soul Cages' and with 'Seven Days' and 'Fields of Gold' from 'Ten Summoner's Tales'. Afterwards, to leave room for the new album, 'Tomorrow We'll See' and the aforementioned 'Desert Rose' which looks like becoming the most listened-to song of the summer with that meeting between rock and world music a bit unexpected in an artist who had got us accustomed rather more to jazz sorties. The finale is all Police standards: through a medley between 'Bring on the Night' and 'When the World is Running Down'. But especially through the encores 'Every Breath You Take' and 'Message in a Bottle', hits from the golden times with Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers.

At Montesarchio Sting opened the European tour that includes seven Italian dates, in which the concerts will by introduced by Niccolo Fabi's performances. A chance for the singer/songwriter of the 'New Roman School' to expose to the wider public his interesting brain-work on texts increasingly characterised by the theme of identity. Enough to listen to one of the selections offered yesterday night to notice this, or else the piece 'If I Were Marco' from the new album 'Clear Sky in the West' in which the Roman singer/songwriter plays with mistaken identity.

(c) La Republica by Carlo Moretti / translated by Diane Villani