Living in music beyond time. A look back at Sting's concert...

On Monday, June 10, in the evening, singer Sting performed at the "Arena Riga" with the concert program "Sting: My Songs", showing the power of music in the modern visual era. The singer gained world fame already in the late seventies of the 20th century as part of the group "The Police", and it was during this time that the musician wrote such songs as "Englishman in New York", "Every Breath You Take", "Roxanne", "Walking on the Moon" and others, breaking various records and winning the love of listeners beyond time and current fashion.

In his solo career, Sting cultivated musical diversity in various concert programs, singing folk music, reggae, performing with a symphony orchestra and an early music ensemble. The hard work of learning music and the enormous talent given by nature – this solid foundation – still gives Sting the unique opportunity to captivate, thrill, and delight listeners solely through music.

Of course, at first, I was a little surprised by how simple the presentation of the “Arena Riga” concert was, but already with the first song “Message in a Bottle”, when Sting gave me the opportunity to evaluate the range of his voice, it became clear that the musical bar had been set high and would hold up throughout the concert.

But still – so high that the concert would be easy to perceive and enjoy with the audience present, so that the voice would be in the foreground, and, most importantly – the sung words would be clearly audible, so that I could repeat the words, sing along!

Sting knows his audience well and that his songs have long lived their own lives in unimaginably diverse variations, in the interpretations of each individual listener, and that is how it will be!

Musically, the most interesting arrangement was for the song “Seven Days”, where Sting and his band played each part of the song in a different way – in tempo or style. The overall sound was enriched by background vocalists who were given the opportunity to become soloists on the song. The song “Desert Rose” can be highlighted as a bright musical climax, in which Sting also sang in Arabic, creating an exotic atmosphere.

The emotional climax was “Fragile”, which Sting sang almost acoustically, thus especially reinforcing the message of the song. “Walking on the Moon”, in turn, was fused with Bob Marley’s song “Get Up, Stand Up”.

Of course, the most anticipated song of the evening was “Every Breath You Take” and after the audience’s ovation, the musician played two more “The Police” songs – “King of Pain” and “Next to You”. In total, 21 songs were played at the concert and, it seems, Sting himself has acquired the ability to live beyond time with his music.

(c) Latvijas Sabiedriskie Mediji by Autori: Aiga Leitholde