The British musician Sting greeted the audience in Slovenian at a concert in Stožice...

The British musician Sting, who visited Ljubljana as part of the 3.0 European tour, performed in Arena Stožice last night. At the concert, he performed the greatest hits both from the time of The Police and from his independent career.

Four years after his last concert in Ljubljana, the British musician visited Stožice again last night. This was his third venue of the tour, which he started a few days ago in Dresden and continued in Zagreb.

The British musician greeted the audience in Slovenian with the words: "Good evening, Ljubljana!" He was accompanied on stage by guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Maas during the hour and 45 minute long concert. The concert opened with the song Voices Inside My Head by The Police. In the following, they also performed hits such as Message in a Bottle, Englishman in New York and Every Breathe You Take.

During the concert, they also prepared a surprise for the visitors. At one point, the 72-year-old Sting picked up a hat that contained the titles of the songs they would play next. The band members drew the songs Tea in Sahara, Why Should I Cry For You and Mad About You.

The concert ended with the song Roxanne. "Thank you very much, Ljubljana! See you again!" concluded Sting and thanked all the visitors in Slovenian.

Sting has performed in Ljubljana several times, in 2019 and 2011 in the Stožice Hall and in 2000 in the Tivoli Hall. At the concert in 2011, he was accompanied by the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom he performed compositions in symphonic arrangements as part of the Symphonicity tour.

He achieved international recognition with the band The Police, which was formed in 1977. The group released five studio albums and contributed hits such as Fields of Gold, Message in a Bottle, Roxanne and Every Breath You Take. After the band's disbandment, Sting decided to go solo in the middle of the first half of the 80s, which brought him many awards and recognitions, including 17 Grammys. Among the hits of his independent career were, for example, Englishman and New York, Fields of Gold and Shape of My Heart.

Already with the band The Police, he became one of the best-selling musicians, together with them and independently he sold more than one hundred million albums. He also appeared in several films and created the musical The Last Ship for Broadway. He released his latest, 15th studio album entitled The Bridge in 2021.

His current tour in Europe will last until the end of August, after which he will move to the USA with his repertoire.

(c) Siol

Sting once again ignited Stožice: “Thank you very much, Ljubljana! See you again!” - He greeted the crowd in Slovenian as well...

The Sting 3.0. tour has also arrived in Stožice. As the bassist and singer of the "power trio", also consisting of guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Maas, Sting treated the audience to a rich selection of solo hits as well as songs from The Police.

Sting, whose real name is Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, is already an old acquaintance of Slovenian stages - he first came to Stožice in 2011 (he came to Slovenia in 2000), and last appeared in 2019, when he presented his new album My Songs. Also as part of the Sting 3.0 world tour, where he presents himself as a bassist as part of a "power trio", which also includes guitarist Dominic Miller, with whom the Briton has been collaborating for a long time, and drummer Chris Maas, who was the drummer for Mumford & Sons for a while on tour, he has come to make Slovenian fans happy for the fourth time. He has thus spoiled their ears with a rich selection of solo hits and those he created with the band The Police.

The crowd was warmed up by French-Italian singer Giordana Angi, who made her debut at the Sanremo Festival in 2012 in the “Newcomers” category. Although everyone was waiting for the star of the evening to take the stage – some people were persistently pressing in the front rows to secure the best view of the stage, others were rushing to buy drinks and even popcorn – by that moment, most people were happily surrendering to the melodies and velvety voice of the “one (wo)man band”. In addition to her own songs, she also sang Shania Twain’s hit Feel Like a Woman. The audience, who were also captivated by her mastery of the electric guitar, swayed to her performance, which they rewarded with applause and whistles of approval both in the middle and at the end.

The closer the big moment got, the more the energy in Stožice began to build up, and it reached its peak when the music from the speakers playing in the background suddenly disappeared. First everything went silent, then the venue went dark, and the crowd “exploded” as the notes of the first Sting song rang out throughout the hall.

The 72-year-old Grammy winner began by taking the audience back to the days when The Police, which he founded with Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland and Henry Padovani in 1977, was still in full swing. He started the evening with the song Voices Inside My Head, which he recently sang for the first time since 2006 at a concert in Dresden. In Germany, which was the first stop on the Sting 3.0 tour, he provided several such "firsts" - he pulled out numerous songs from the "naphthalene" after many years.

In Ljubljana, the song Synchronicity II, inspired by Jung's theory of synchronicity, from the band's fifth and final album, followed, which talks about two parallel events that are logically unrelated, but are connected symbolically.

Without stopping, the trio moved on, and after the first few notes, the audience realized that it was time for a classic. They surrendered to the story of the search for love and loneliness of a shipwrecked man in the song Message in a Bottle. Although the concert had only just begun, Stožice came alive – the verses echoed with emotion from the throats of the audience, who were excitedly jumping to the rhythm of the music and “calling for help” in one voice: “I hope someone gets my message in a bottle.”

After an incredibly loud applause, which testified to the enthusiasm on the stage, the first song of the evening, which is part of the singer's solo career, was performed after the garland of songs by The Police - If I Ever Lose My Faith in You. During this song, the performer called on the audience to join him by clapping in rhythm, to which everyone responded joyfully.

Soon after, another famous melody from his solo career, Fields of Gold, rang out. You could see a small sea of phones, wanting to capture the moment forever, and some lifted theirs just to make their light better visible.

While the audience accompanied the path to the golden fields with high-frequency shouts and whistles, the trio of musicians had already continued their musical journey. Namely, the experienced, full of increasing tension, Never Coming Home followed.

“Good evening, Ljubljana!” he greeted the Slovenian fans in solid Slovenian, who came to life even more at these words, and added that he did not know what would happen in the next part of the concert. The musician pulled out a hat containing slips of paper with song titles. The honor of choosing the first song went to Miller, who drew Tea and Sahara. This was inspired by Paul Bowles' book The Sheltering Sky. The front row in Stožice in particular enthusiastically sang the lyrics, some of whom clapped their hands in excitement.

With the words “I have no idea what’s next,” Sting accompanied the drummer’s selection of the next note – the other random song of the evening was Why Should I Cry For You, which is part of the album Sting wrote after the death of his father, with whom he had a difficult relationship.

The master storyteller’s luck, however, wanted him to choose from the hat the song Mad About You, which belongs to the same album as the previous selection. The verses rang out throughout the hall: “Without you I’m lost / ... I’m crazy about you.” The source of inspiration for the 1991 love song is King David from the Book of Samuel.

After applause, the British musician then briefly switched back to one of the songs by The Police. During Driven to Tears – which is dominated by the theme of the division between rich and poor and which announced a new, more politically activist era for the band – the crowd was visibly enjoying themselves, especially when the performers took a breather on the instrumental and vocal parts.

The performer calmed down the slightly more wild atmosphere with the song When the Angels Fall, which is steeped in the conflict between faith and death, during which he sat down on a chair. Some held each other's shoulders and gave in to the slower rhythms.

Then the atmosphere went to the other extreme again – after the announcement that they would be performing the legendary song Englishman in New York, the audience was in heaven even before the first notes. Verses like “I’m a legal alien, I’m an Englishman in New York,” Sting wrote about the eccentric icon Quentin Crisp, who had moved from London to Manhattan at the time. The Stožice had already given their all with the written verses, but they managed to surpass this when repeating the part “Be who you are, no matter what they say,” which Sting sang several times as a kind of mantra. A deafening response followed, honoring the Briton, who masterfully included the audience in his performance.

The passionate singing – and dancing – continued as the arena was filled with the beats of Can’t Stand Losing You from the debut album The Police, which is also the band’s first single to conquer the music charts. When the song was released in 1978, part of the lyrics of which talk about a boy planning to take his own life because his girlfriend no longer loves him, some were shocked by the cover, which showed Copeland standing on a melting ice cube with a noose around his neck.

Sting then, to everyone's delight, began singing the more melancholic song Shape of My Heart, whose melody prompted the singer to tell the story of a gambler who does not gamble to win, but wants to find out the logic behind luck.

The hips of the exuberant music fans then “were able to break free from gravity” and swayed to the song Walking on the Moon, during which the author tested the vocal abilities of the gathered. The song was supposedly written after Sting’s concert in Munich, when he was a little drunk in his hotel room, and the muse for it was supposedly his first serious girlfriend.

After landing on solid ground again, Stožice jumped to their feet again and with the song So Lonely they united in the feeling of loneliness that accompanies a broken heart – in a reggae and punk version of loneliness, which has a higher tempo and does not give a feeling of self-pity. For an intermezzo, the trio suddenly took on Bob Marley’s reggae anthem Everything’s Gonna Be Alright, but then returned to the original rhythm of So Lonely.

The hall was then filled to the last corner with another one of those songs that can be attributed to legend – Desert Rose. At Sting's signal, the crowd raised their hands high in the air and, while shouting the chorus of the song, which was created in collaboration with Algerian songwriter Cheb Rabah and has a North African touch, surrendered to the longing and goosebumps that the song certainly evokes.

After “Dreaming of Love”, Sting served up a new batch of The Police harmonies. It began with the song King of Pain, in which he combines symbols of pain as a consequence of his first divorce, and in which he invested his own pain, which he felt when his first marriage collapsed.

During that period, the next song that resonated in the ears of listeners was also written – the unforgettable and emotionally charged hit Every Breathe You Take. The lyrics are supposed to be anything but romantic – they are the words of a possessive lover. The repetition of the words “I’ll be watching you” and the flashing of telephone lights were also accompanied by the “old-fashioned” glow of lighters.

Still under the impression of the song, Stožice roared as the trio bowed and temporarily left the stage. The hall called him back with tireless screams, whistles and stamping of feet. Upon their return, the performers rewarded the audience and served up another hit, Roxanne.

After the penultimate, wild song about a man who fell in love with a prostitute whose name echoed throughout the Ljubljana scene, the British multi-instrumentalist ended the musical journey of more than 20 songs that Sting took the Slovenian audience on on a different note. “I’m going to leave you with something peaceful,” announced the British music legend, singing Fragile in acoustics.

This is actually a tribute to Ben Linder, an American engineer who was a victim of the right-wing Contra rebel group, which was financially supported by the US, while working on a hydroelectric project in Nicaragua. He reminded everyone present, who did not disappoint and sang word for word, of how fragile we are. He sent them home with an important message that can be heard in the song and is especially meaningful given the current global situation: “Nothing is made of violence.”

“Thank you very much, Ljubljana! See you again!” said Sting in farewell, blowing a few kisses to the audience, the last “thank you” he said in Slovenian, and the guitarist gave the cooperation of those in the front row a thumbs up as he left the stage. After an hour and 45 minutes of almost non-stop playing, the audience went home satisfied, perhaps even a little hoarse. “Well, we’ve heard everything from the hits,” could be heard as they left the scene of the crime.

(c) RTV Slovenia by Žana E. Čeh