I just got back from my second night of seeing Sting at Great Woods. Tonights show was even better than last night! His voice was great-he was wearing the exact same outfit he wore last night, but man, does he wear it well! The set list remained the same but he broke it up a little differently with his chatter. He's finally dropped the 4th of July banter. Tonight it was rainy and windy due to Bertha passing by, so he said a special hello to everyone with lawn seats and told them how this weather was very English, so they had his sympathies. He again pulled someone up onstage to sing I'm So Happy...with him, but apparently word has gotten out and some people came prepared with a huge sign which said "Pick John". And he did. John was great; when Sting asked him if he knew the lyrics, John said, "I'm a musician". Sting replied, "That's nice but do you know the lyrics?" and gave him instructions to sing along on the chorus only, not on the verse. Well, it turned out that John not only knew all the lyrics, but had a great voice and an incredible stage presence, and he ended up singing both chorus and verse with his arm draped around Sting's shoulder. When they were done, Sting gave him the compliment of a lifetime when he leaned into the mike and said "This kid is really good!" Then they shook hands and John reached over and gave Sting a big hug! (Some guys get all the luck). Speaking of which, has anyone noticed that Sting only asks guys up to sing with him? Later in the show a female fan threw her blouse up on the stage - Sting went over and picked it up, held it up for the crowd to see, and said "We have here one lady's blouse" and laid it on his table. After the last encore as Sting was doing his run down the stage , fans were handing him books, large envelopes, flowers, paper bags, all sorts of things, which he graciously accepted as he was shaking hands with everyone crowding up against the stage. He could barely hold all his goodies (he was holding them up against his chest) as he went to the mike one last time to thank everyone for making the effort to come out and see him in the rain. He really sounded sincere , and I think he put a little more of himself in this show because of everyone coming out to see him in the storm. Musically, tonights show had a much better flow to it, and the crowd was more into it too, singing along a lot more and standing for the entire show from If You Love Somebody... to the end of Fragile. (Last night people were up and down). Sorry this is so long but there was so much going on. I think his interactions with the band have already been well documented, Sting's got a great sense of humor and his comic expressions and interplay with the band got a lot of laughs,too. Hey, anyone got some extra tickets for Chicago?
Ok, here goes:
karen rips off all remaining clothes and SCREAMS, "Sting, lose the horn section." Something about the entire show bugged me, and I think it was the horns. My initial thought was, maybe sting doesn't realize the antics of the two behind him. But dominic sure did... no wonder he stood off in the corner, eyes closed gazing toward heaven, pleading, "please god, deliver me from this foolishness!" Those two horn dudes high stepping and criss crossing the stage were a MAJOR distraction to the show and the music. Maybe i'm a purist, but i don't want to hear HORNS in Police classics....I guess horns MIGHT be ok for the Mercury Falling stuff, but on everything? Give me a break....
Oh there were a few highpoints....
Sting's arms, the kid who got to go up and sing the country tune was great. Dominic as always showed his impressive talents despite the other band members and Kenny would be incredible under any circumstances. Ok you can flame me now. I give this tour a thumbs down.
The best part of this was that he was CLEARLY a fan (the kid who got to go up and sing the country tune)...I hate it when non-fans get up there and do to say they did it. This guy was a bigtime fan (or did a great job of appearing to be) and knew all the words, joined in on the verses, and made the most of an opportunity of a lifetime. Sting was way cool about this.
Highlights, for me anyway...Mad About You (loved it), I Was Brought to My Senses, ELTSDIM, Synchronicity II, Roxanne, and all the earlier solo stuff, since it's what I would've picked from each album. Shape of My Heart would've been good though....
Don't know if I can say the whole tour is a bust, because I liked this show better than the one I saw in 1993.
Anyone else think the Cowboy Junkies were ineffective openers?
Definitely worth the trek out in the tropical storm. I felt bad for the people on the lawn.
The Great Woods Show was SO contrived almost Vegas-y. I was sitting there thinking how could someone who'd created such intensely haunting, beautiful groundbreaking sound w/ the Police have gotten to this point....then it hit me, except for The Soul Cages, he really has never been as good alone as he was w/ Stew and Andy.
I happened to be sitting around a lot of college age people who never had the pleasure of seeing the Police, and who's only frame of reference is Sting the solo artist...they were ultra-impressed by his performance, so it's all just a matter of opinion. But I was more saddened than impressed...too commercial oh and BTW i missed the entire Cowboy junkies set, due to Bertha.
I went to the July 13 concert at Great Woods, and while I was there, a friend of my sister told me something that made me wonder. At first I didn't believe her, because I figured I would have heard about it from someone on the list, but then I realized that's not necessarily true. Anyway, she said that the father of a friend of hers from work was a roadie, and that her friend had met and dated Sting's son. I asked, "Joe?" and she said yes, but she also thought that he was a couple years older than her friend, who is 22 or 23. I said that Joe is Sting's oldest, but that he's younger than we are - only 19 or 20. That seemed to puzzle her, but she still seemed sure that it was true. (Then again, she also told me her friend had backstage passes to our concert, and that she would be sitting ON the stage while Sting was performing. I never saw anyone besides Sting's band on the stage.) Anyway, she also said that her friend had run into Joe at a store in Cambridge. "Massachusetts, or England?" I asked. She told me it was Mass., and that Joe had moved to Cambridge and is now living there. Now if this is true, I may have to get off the Cape a little more often this summer, but for some reason, I just find her story hard to believe. Does anybody know anything about this? Maybe someone in England knows that he's still there? I know it's not impossible that he really moved to my state, but I can't think of a reason why he would do that.
Also, as for this debate about whether Sting was any good, FWIW, my sister's friends went to his concert in '88, and they said he was better this time, even though he didn't take off his shirt. I couldn't get myself as excited about this concert as I did for the Academy concert in March, but that's only because at the Academy, I was three feet away from Sting during the concert, I had my body pressed up against his before the show, I got his autograph (sort of), he read a note out loud on stage that I threw to him, I saw Brad Pitt and had Robin Williams say hi to me, and that was the first time I had gotten to see Sting in concert. That's kind of a hard act to follow, I guess. That's not to say I didn't enjoy his Great Woods performance, though - I thought Sting was very energetic, and his voice was in great form. It just would have been better if I could have touched him again.
I agree that the Cowboy Junkies were not the best opening act. I do remember one song from their set very clearly, though. Because Bertha struck Boston the night of our concert, the people up on the lawn were getting soaked throughout the opening act. The lead singer dedicated a song to these people: "Because Cheap is How I Feel".
Review of the Great Woods shows, 12th and 13th;Both shows were good, highlights including:
A random audience member assisting on the chorus of 'I'm so Happy I can't Stop Crying' a marriage proposal by an audience member to his girlfriend (also in the audience) right before preforming 'Fields of Gold'
The sound mix was better on Saturday the 13th, Friday seemed to leave the keyboards a bit in the background.
2 encores each night, including 'Every Breath you Take'.
For the Police fans, in addition to Every Breath he played Roxanne, Demolition Man (the techno remix created for the Stalone movie), and Every Little Thing She does is Magic.
The addition of the sax and trombone players turned a good show into great music; the only downer I can name is the lack of energy by Sting himself, guess I've been watching too many old police concert videos...
All in all, more than worth while, even when we had to sit through hurricane bertha on his Saturday night show.
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