STING HAS HIS OLD BUZZ BACK
Musician comes full circle
On May 22, 1979, a trio from the U.K., criss-crossing the country on its first North American tour, debuted at the Commodore Ballroom as part of Perryscope Productions’ Cheap Thrills concert series.
The Police headlined a brilliant show and left a very positive impression. The band was back for two sold-out shows at the PNE Gardens in February 1980. According to many, the bleach-blond band was blown off the stage by opening act The Specials. The ska revival was an instant hit.
But the local love affair for The Police — singer/bassist Sting, drummer Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers — would last much longer as the band became one of the 1980s’ supergroups.
Vancouver Sun rock critic Vaughn Palmer would note: “The boss of it all is Sting, star of screen (Quadrophenia) and stage. Sting (a.k.a. Gordon Sumner), bassist, singer, lonely dancer and principal songwriter, is probably the most convincing frontman in new wave.”
The band would play some spectacular concerts here. One night at the Pacific Coliseum even came close to the night with The Specials, when The Police had XTC as the opening act. Those were the days of preventive measures to avoid “death by trampling at a Who concert” situations. And when XTC made the mistake of telling people to come down and dance, the show almost ended.
On Feb. 1, Sting returns to the Commodore on his 57th & 9th Tour. That the man who previously performed three sold-out GM Place shows with the reformed Police a decade ago and packed Rogers Arena on a co-headline tour with Paul Simon in 2014 is playing a place that holds just over 1,000 people means nothing in terms of his career trajectory. His new single I Can’t Stop Thinking About You is one of his best in years.
When you are worth an estimated US$306 million, you get to choose how and where to play. And Sting wants to play more intimate venues for the launch of his first
straight-up pop album in more than 10 years. Happily, the lute and the orchestra are out of a gig this time around.
The opening acts are his son and City of Angels FC co-owner Joe Sumner, who had very limited success with a trio of albums with his band Fiction Plane, and super-buzzed-about act The Last Bandoleros. This latter crew’s Tex-Mex pop has been pegged as something to watch for in the coming year. There is no denying that songs such as Where Do You Go? are right hooky. Sting has been joining the band onstage sometimes, too. Nice.
The truth is a lot of Police fans wanted to give Sting a kick in the pants when he disbanded the group at its popular pinnacle in 1984. But the singer was already hard at work with the launch of his solo career and 1985’s The Dream of the Blue Turtles.
That record put the jazzy and progressive elements of his craft front and centre. The Blue Turtles Tour that accompanied the top-10 North American release kicked off in New York City in February 1985 and featured a band with saxophonist Branford Marsalis, drummer Omar Hakim and the late pianist Kenny Kirkland.
Vancouver wouldn’t get a taste of this group until 1988, but those who were there saw a group at the top of its chops with the added benefits of the fantastic material featured on the more ambitious Nothing Like the Sun, an album dedicated to Sting’s dead mother. Sting’s next release, 1991’s The Soul Cages, was dedicated to his dead father.
Not surprisingly, his music was getting more serious with even longtime fans starting to lose the narrative. As the 2000s loomed, Sting was more of a celebrity cause spokesman and less a musician in many people’s minds.
Always one to do his own thing, the musician ventured into classical music. Enamoured with the music of English Renaissance composer John Dowland (1563-1626), who had a penchant for penning seriously melancholic material, Sting released a trio of albums devoted to Dowland. These don’t mark a career highlight.
This put Sting into an ever-so-serious sensibility, which gave the world the utterly frosty holiday album If On a Winter’s Night (2009) and the symphonic renderings of past material with Symphonicities in 2010.
The Last Ship (2013) was a concept album about the final days of dockworkers in a dying industry. Critics liked to call it The Last Yacht, as the posh creator trying to sound like a working-class fellow on the outs was, well, a mixed bag. Nobody can deny that the songs worked. Was a Broadway musical needed? There’s a cast recording to answer that.
So having Sting back writing pop/ rock material and playing many of his classic tunes on this tour is a pretty big deal for fans going all the way back to that 1979 Commodore performance.
When you are worth an estimated US$306 million, you get to choose how and where to play. And Sting wants to play more intimate venues.