Thanks to Dave & Wendy Dunn for the Ticket Stub
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Thanks to Dave & Wendy Dunn for the Ticket Stub |
Well, tonight it was Manchester and the Nynex Arena. This was without doubt the biggest venue that Sting will play in the UK. A 20,000 seat venue of US proportions that was pretty full (one full end was curtained off). Not too many of the 'regular' crowd but Stevie, Sue and John were down from Glasgow, two of the German girls that were at Dunes - sorry can't recall their names: Wanda from New York and Stina from Madrid were all there, and we were all in the same row - first tier, front row quite close to the stage - which was very nice.
Some brief news from Sheffield, Cardiff and Birmingham first. Stina managed to get a couple of free tickets and backstage passes off Dominic at Sheffield, and couldn't use the tickets as she already one - if only Dave had seen her on Wednesday he could have upgraded! Aarrgh! At both Cardiff and Birmingham Sting has not played 25 to Midnight and has not replaced it with another song. The girl backing singers have not been at any UK show, including tonight's, other than Newcastle - that was clearly his hometown treat - but we reckon they'll be back for the London shows starting next week. Stina's opinion was that last nights show in Birmingham was the best yet with a really good crowd.
Right, back to Manchester. Paul Carrack pulled out - don't know why - and his place as support was taken by a local band called Dreyfus. They have not yet released a single, and are more used to playing the Manchester pub scene apparently, so adapted pretty well to playing before such a different and large crowd. They only played five songs but were OK.
The show followed the now usual format, but BOTN/WTWIRD had a different, more jazzier middle piece to it - the song was almost brought to a standstill before being built up again to a climax. On ISHICSC, Sting brought three volunteers up on stage - one woman who was initially amusing but very quickly became irritating - pulling the mike away from the two guys that were also on stage and generally hogging the limelight as much as possible, but one of the guys was given a whole solo verse "I took a walk alone last night..." to sing while Sting watched. Not quite 'Ross' standards melodically, but he made a good enough attempt at it and deserved his mid-song round of applause. Highlight? - Lithium Sunset, with Kenny (in the absence of Paul Carrack) belting out the "Mercury Falling" lyric. Words almost fail us - its worth the ticket price just to hear this song alone. The more we see them the more impressed we are with the contribution of Butch and Clark. Major down point was the audience, which seemed very flat (it also looked very old from where we were). The guy who reviewed the Newcastle show in the Independent's review had a point - playing 4 straight songs off the new album is not the ideal way to get the audience leaping to their feet - on the evidence of what we've seen so far it seems to take "Set Them Free" and "Magic" to do this. Things might be different at the Royal Albert Hall though ;-)
Well, there is now only 5 days till the tour hits London. Starting on Thursday, things are going to get REALLY good!!!!!!!! Hope to catch some of you on Thursday and Saturday....
LS (you know who you are!) - Trudie was there tonight, right in front of us (twice) and it has to be said she looked drop-dead gorgeous. Eat your heart out!
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