Sting: My Songs Tour: 2021 - 2023

At Sting's concert in Arena Zagreb, we saw both father and son, and some probably even the Holy Spirit of pop music...

After postponing his EU tour last spring due to the war in Ukraine, this time he started in Finland, Lithuania and Latvia, close to the hotbed, and since he had previously played North American concerts with his backing band, both he and the band in Zagreb were in top form, as if they were playing in a living room and not in front of a full sports hall.

It took only 95 minutes and 20 songs for Sting to show what he knows and can do, and he knows a lot, in a sold-out Arena Zagreb, and he left the stage with a standing ovation from the audience. In short, we saw both father and son, and some probably even the Holy Spirit of pop music of the last decades. Namely, half an hour before Sting, his son Joe Sumner performed with an acoustic guitar, strikingly similar to his father in both stature and voice. If you didn't know that and had you entered the hall, heard him and seen him on the two video screens next to the stage, you would have thought that Sting was his own unplugged support band.

Joe returned to the stage for a duet with the "old man" on the song "King Of Pain", but by then Dad had already shown who was in charge.

Ten years ago, Sting last performed at the Arena Zagreb in front of just four thousand fans, as did Lenny Kravitz a few nights before him. It was a time of recession and surprisingly few audiences came to see the beloved name of the domestic mass audience. Before which Sting appeared regularly, from the two Arenas in Pula in the late nineties, through perhaps his best acoustic performance with lutes with Edin Karamazov in Lisinski in 2008, to the kitschy concert with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Arena Zagreb in 2010.

Today, the recession is knocking on the door again, but on Monday night, Sting was greeted by a sold-out hall at the Arena Zagreb, perhaps a hundred tickets left. After postponing his EU tour last spring due to the war in Ukraine, this time he started in Finland, Lithuania and Latvia, close to the hot spots, and since he had previously played North American concerts with his backing band, both he and the band in Zagreb were in top form, as if they were playing in a living room and not in front of a full sports hall.

The "My Songs" tour is very similar to the "Back to Bass" tour ten years ago, because at current concerts, Sting plays what he has best - his own songs - without much philosophy with a small band. And there are a lot of them, because he is a capable author who has signed a convincing repertoire for almost 45 years. In addition, Sting is also an excellent bassist, and of course a singer, and all together it is more than enough for a concert that seems to have lasted much longer, considering how many moods, genres and styles he showed.

Starting with the trademark from the Police era "Message in a Bottle" and "Englishman in New York", and then "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" by the Police, Sting casually walked around the very edge of the stage, as close to the audience as possible, singing with ease and playing the bass with which he seemed to have grown together and as if he was not 71 years old. There were no visual tricks or special effects on stage, because Sting is a special effect in itself: when they see him on the video screen, women sigh, and men go to yoga or the gym.

After them came the only three new songs of the evening, from last year's Sting's pandemic album "The Bridge", the slower "If It's Love" and "For Her Love" during which he relaxedly sat on a chair without letting go of his bass guitar, and the hit-like "Rushing Water" which melted into "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You", which in turn melted into the beautiful ballad "Fields Of Gold".

In "Brand New Day" the harmonica player came into his own, "Shape Of My Heart" brought a duet with a backing singer, and then "What Could Have Been" - perhaps the best song of the evening, and a new one at that - from last year's Netflix animated series "Arcane" put guitarist Dominic Miller, who has been with Sting for years and is the only one besides him under the bright white spotlight, into the spotlight. "Whenever I Say Your Name" and a duet by Sting with a backing singer ended the middle, quieter part of the concert, after which the heavy metal hits began with roars of satisfaction from the stands and the dance floor.

Sting chose enough material from his solo career, but on this occasion the nostalgic nod to The Police era was much stronger than before. A total of eight of the twenty songs performed were from The Police era. Among the megahits "Walking on the Moon", "So Lonely" - with an interlude of Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry" and "King of Pain" (a duet with his son, when it became clear that there were really two of them, side by side) and the fast-paced "Every Breath You Take" - when the entire Arena Zagreb lit up like one big mobile phone - at the end of the regular part of the concert he also included "Desert Rose", his biggest ethno, not to say "folk", and hit of the later period of his career.

An encore with the audience singing along to "Roxanne", which also included a rearranged middle part, and the elegant "Fragile", on which Sting took up the acoustic guitar, closed the concert with a standing ovation from the audience. On paper, everything may seem predictable, but excellent musicians and a serious repertoire of songs that have long since become the emotional baggage of the world's audience leave no room for doubt that Sting and his accompanying band played a masterful, condensed and fine concert, at which it was clearly evident that we are dealing with a first-class author of his generation, along with a great bassist and singer who "bites" the entire time of his now seriously long career.

(c) Večernji list by Hrvoje Horvat

Sting delighted the almost full Arena: He played a string of hits, and saved the real gem for the very end...

As announced, Sting was supported by his son - Joe Sumner

In an almost full Arena, Sting played some of the biggest hits from his career to the Zagreb audience in a concert that lasted over an hour and a half. He showed that he can still do a concert more than well.

As announced, Sting was supported by his son - Joe Sumner. The lights of the Arena go out, and Joe takes the stage exactly as scheduled at 8 p.m. Alone, with effect pedals under his feet and an acoustic guitar in his hand, Joe begins to warm up the audience. In a light tone, with his guitar, he sets a relaxed atmosphere and plays a few songs that last about ten minutes each. The son, like his father, leaves the stage to applause after the well-played songs.

15 minutes after Sumner Jr., the man of the evening – Sting – takes the stage. In tight pants and a tight shirt, slightly torn as at the beginning of his career, Sting puts his famous bass around his neck and opens the concert without saying much. The first song of the evening was Message in a Bottle. The enthusiastic audience slowly begins to catch the atmosphere from the beginning of the 71-year-old's career when he took the stage as part of the group The Police.

After the third song played, Sting greets Zagreb for the first time this evening and begins to introduce his band. This British musician brought 7 other musicians to the stage with him who illuminated the evening with their brilliant talents. In this tour called My Songs, Sting is accompanied on stage by a rock band that includes Dominic Miller on guitar, Josh Freese on drums, Rufus Miller on guitar, Kevon Webster on keyboards, Shane Sager on harmonica and Melissa Musique and Gene Noble as backing vocalists.

Various songs slipped through the repertoire, which lasted about 95 minutes. Both old ones, such as So Lonely from the first album of The Police, and some well-known ones from his solo career, such as Shape of My Heart. The hall was almost full. Although the audience was not very much into dancing, you could still clearly see and hear the pleasure, and Sting certainly justified his star status. In the song King of Paint, son Joe comes on stage again and enters into a duet with his father.

After all the musicians who played this evening in front of an almost full Arena, it was time for an encore. It seems that the greatest gem was saved for the very end. The band returns to the stage to play an even more famous one – Roxanne.

After Roxanne, the rest of the band slowly fades into the background. Sting leaves the bass guitar and takes an acoustic one. He sits on a chair, and the white lights turn towards the audience. He starts playing Fragile and with a light acoustic tone brings the evening in the Arena to an end. He thanks Zagreb, but also promises to meet again.

(c) Jutarnji by Bruno Gazibara

Sting in the Arena – songs that have long been not only his...

For a 71-year-old, Sting is truly in great shape; apart from his gray hair, he has hardly changed at all since the nineties, and his voice is still usable, which cannot be said for a bunch of his contemporaries.

First of all, I must point out that everyone in the packed Arena last night was probably a bigger fan of Sting than I was. Namely, I really appreciate that he has tried an incredible amount of things in his career, but some of those projects, such as the music and arrangement of John Dowland accompanied by a lute or the archival folk from the album “The Last Ship”, were indigestible and unlistenable to the point that I lost the will to go to any of his previous Zagreb concerts.

Sting is by far the best when he sticks to pop-rock from his early days, strongly imbued with reggae, later also soul, funk and world music, or rather, exactly what the setlist of the current “My Songs” tour consists of.

In his 40-odd years on stage, he has undoubtedly nailed 10-15 songs that have long been not only his, but represent timeless evergreens that accompany us throughout our lives, whether as before in the form of videos from MTV or from one of the countless radio stations. We heard most of these songs on Monday when he went through the greatest hits repertoire from The Police onwards for an hour and 40 minutes, with a short section of his latest album “The Bridge”.

His son, who looks so much like him that those more inclined to conspiracy theories might think that Sting has quite successfully cloned himself, took the stage first. Joe Sumner inherited strong vocals from his old man, even a very similar timbre of voice that, truth be told, reminded me of Bono Vox at times, but musically it's not exactly anything – a nice pop-folk somewhere between David Gray and something that sounds like an acoustic (and worse) U2 that evaporates from memory with enviable speed.

The star of the evening therefore started in grand style with “Message in the Bottle” by his former band and “Englishman in New York” which the audience sang along with him, more or less doing all the songs performed. There was no objection to the next one, also taken from the Police repertoire, “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic”, although I would have much rather heard “Wrapped Around Your Finger” in its place. He promoted his latest album with the weak “If it’s Love”, the solid “For Her Love” and the really good “Rushing Water” which didn’t stand out even in the company of the next series of hits such as “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” and “Fields of Gold”.

Sting is in great shape for a 71-year-old; apart from his grey hair, he has hardly changed at all since the nineties, and his voice is still there, which can’t be said for a lot of his contemporaries. The stage was quite minimalistic, although effectively arranged, leaving him plenty of space to move around and approach the front rows, especially since he used a head microphone instead of a classic one. We also had the opportunity to hear, conditionally speaking, three duets – backing vocalist Gene Noble took the otherwise excellent “Shape of My Heart” into ready-made r’n’b, Melisa Musique assisted him incomparably better and worthily replaced Mary J. Blige in “Whenever I Say Your Name”, while Joe appeared again on “King of Pain”, where, at least for my taste, he got a little too carried away in the choruses. Along with the beautiful “What Could Have Been”, taken from the animated series “Arcane”, we also saw a few scenes from it, convincing us once again that the muses of inspiration are still visiting him.

The backing band, consisting of a drummer, keyboardist, harmonica player, two singers and led by the phenomenal guitarist Dominic Miller, also deserved praise. At the end of the concert, they took us on a musical journey whose stations included reggae (“Walking On the Moon”, “So Lonely”) and ethno (“Desert Rose”), as well as the legendary “Every Breath You Take”, during which the entire Arena was lit up by cell phones. The remaining encores were “Roxanne”, in which I was somewhat bothered by the fact that the “put on the red light” part was spoken more than sung, and “Fragile”, which is painfully appropriate for the times we live in.

All in all, a full-blooded pop-rock spectacle of the old school, one of those that doesn’t require any lighting effects, scenography, video walls... nothing but music!

(c) Ravno Do DNA by Vedran Harča