Sting, the eternal devil who brought Christmas to Madrid...

Although Sting arrived in Madrid this Friday to celebrate Christmas, his ability to freeze time in a limbo of timeless songs and with a privileged physique that also endures the years, without any stagecraft, seems more like a pact with the devil.

It was on the second night of music at "Christmas By Starlite," which premiered the Starlite festival in the Spanish capital for the first time. It was originally based in Marbella, a town in Malaga, among beautiful people in their best clothes during the warmer months.

With a full house, some 7,800 seats according to the organizers, the British artist's return to the city comes six years after his concert as part of the Universal Music Festival at the Teatro Real in Madrid.

Then, as today, the backdrop for the event predicted a night of glitter and celebrity posturing, but once again the star's live power overshadowed everything else, even more so tonight in the midst of a greatest hits tour since the era of The Police, with no fillers or excuses for recent albums.

In fact, during the 100-minute concert, nothing was played after his 1999 album 'Brand New Day', his sixth solo studio album, despite the fact that Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner (Wallsend, 1951) released extensively in the following years, specifically seven more albums with previously unreleased material up to 'The Bridge' (2021).

It's hard to ignore the imperceptible effect of time on a man who, at 72, seems like the brother of his own son, Joe Sumner, who has served as his opening act, and who, in addition to his hyper-fibrous physical form, retains a compact voice that is still solidly placed on the long notes of his most legendary songs.

The simplicity of his stage design also caught our attention, not much more than a few projections and even his holey T-shirt, in contrast to the excesses of the Christmas display surrounding the Starlite concept from the entrance to this Ifema-Madrid pavilion, converted into a concert hall and gourmet lounge.

In reality, such a display wasn't necessary to give substance to Sting's performance, accompanied by two backing vocalists and four other musicians, with him on bass from the opening of "Message In a Bottle" and continuing relentlessly with "Englishman In New York," in which they indulged in a percussive bridge with a rather energetic, almost hip-hop feel.

Nearly a third of the musical selection was taken up by his proud past with The Police, especially towards the end, although pieces such as 'Spirits In The Material World' were heard from the beginning, alongside his own gems such as 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' or 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free', his first solo single, released in 1985.

"How are you? Are you okay?" he asked in Spanish after one of the most chanted songs, "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You," and the collective sigh aroused by the first chords of the beautiful "Fields Of Gold," during a part of the concert that focused on his early nineties albums.

There, the most memorable passages for the audience were heard, such as the harmonica-filled "Brand New Day" or the delicate "Shape Of My Heart," with its "R&B" influence, compared to others that were clearly used by the audience to visit the bars and urinals, such as "Heavy Cloud No Rain" or "All This Time."

The final third regained its momentum, however, with invocations of anthems like "Walking On The Moon" and, above all, "So Lonely," which shook the audience out of a certain slumber and made clear The Police's original reggae vocation by grafting a tribute to Bob Marley onto the song's final stretch.

The spell continued with the orientalist "Desert Rose" and "King of Pain," with his son Joe Sumner returning to the stage, and then went wild with the obsessive tale of "Every Breath You Take," the heartbreaking "Roxanne," and the finale of "Fragile."

(c) Cope by Javier Herrero

Sting conquers Madrid with history (and a steady stream of gears)...

The Brit pulls off hits at his concert at Starlite's Christmas arrival in Madrid.

After 12 years in Marbella, Starlite has taken Madrid by storm with a series of glittering concerts (Ricky Martín, Lola Índigo, and Sebastián Yatra among them). On Thursday, Rod Stewart inaugurated IFEMA's Pavilion 12 in Madrid, a grand opening with a grand display and pomp. A venue decorated with Christmas effects, with shops and food courts: lots of artifice, but everything is well packaged. Of course, if the music is the most important thing, spectacular sound must reign supreme, and that's exactly what it is with the Holoplot system, used by U2 in Las Vegas, among others. Great sound.

Nearly 8,000 people packed the venue for an evening timidly opened by Joe Sumner, Sting's son. The Police frontman treated us to his classics under the title "My Songs," a live performance he's been pumping out since 2019. He kicked things off in style with "Message In A Bottle," an undeniable classic from a band fundamental to the history of pop-rock. He then followed up with a classic from his early days, "Englishman in New York."

Dressed in a short-sleeved animal-themed T-shirt, Sting, Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, can boast an elixir of youth. His voice accompanies him. And a band with three backing vocalists, guitar, harmonica, keyboards, guitars, and drums, with him crowning a worn bass that he makes sound powerful.

After the initial surge of classics (the two aforementioned, along with The Police's "Every Little Does Is Magic," "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free," which lacked that brilliant studio sax, and "Spirits in a Material World"), things declined with more inconsequential tracks. Sting possesses greater mastery and power with The Police, but his solo career has its immense landscapes and its wastelands. Not everything is going to be wonderful.

And it's when he toys with a more mellow fusion ("Hounds of Winter," "Brand New Day," "Why Should I Cry For You"), leaning more toward ballads, or seeking fusion ("Heavy Cloud"), or hints of R.E.M. ("All This Time") that things don't work. That's when she gets lost, confused, and loses her essence. But she regains the audience's interest with "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You," a worthy mediocrity elevated to classic status but exploited to the point of exhaustion, or by pulling off a dramatic effect with "Shape Of My Heart."

Everything was designed to revisit The Police classics and restore things to their empire: "Walking On The Moon" still sounds splendid, in that reggae-like tempo, or the energetic and impulsive style of "So Lonely": hyper-charged, adrenaline-fueled songs, the kind that recharge our batteries.

His voice resonates with that ragged, confessional quality that is so captivating. Meanwhile, the show continued briskly, but with the tempo sometimes off-kilter. His band shines, with backing vocalists in R&B mode, or reaching the highest notes, or the prodigious harmonica.

The repertoire was uneven, but the classics and hits worked brilliantly. They're what saved Sting. The band sounds splendid, and he exudes youth and skill. But the repertoire leaves us a little lost. Not everything goes.

"Every Breath You Take," a classic from "Synchronicity" (1983), perhaps The Police's most commercial and most stilted album, works in the final stretch to restore the audience's enthusiasm.

In the encore, a medley of "Roxanne" is effective but blurred by that impersonal, Prodigious Decade-style, along with a disarming ballad like "Fragile." The result doesn't quite sink in. But hey, Sting maintains his appeal and his songbook. The irrelevant shouldn't take center stage in his concerts. That said, the performance was brilliant at 72 years old. It's The Police's songs that stand out, yes, but whoever had that power.

(c) ABC by Andrés Castaño