Symphonicity

Sting & The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Xcel Center, St Paul, MN 2010.06.21

How often do you get to go to a rock concert and hear a clarinet solo?  It wasn't Branford on the soprano sax, but it filled the role. After a two-year tour with The Police, this attempt seems to be an appropriate Sting counterpoint response, and probably more lucrative and less dreadful than his lute/ English folk side career that has consumed much of the past five years.   The strength of Sting's music has always come through the best in the Police and with his 1990 band, being a stripped down less-is-more approach[1]. With only a few great musicians contributing, each instrument and each note takes on a prominent role in the sound.  Here the situation is reversed.  Rather than strip everything to its minimalist components, the songs incorporated every intsrument into a wall of sound.  This is itself is a leap for Sting, who is a control freak and has always been able to control his bands from the lowest bass note to the highest vocal note. The immense amount of scoring and choreographing necessary here completely negates any spontaneous control he might have.  While Dominic Miller provided an important center with his elegant guitar, he could have been allowed a little more electric juice.  Most importantly, the lack of an electric bass was a glaring auditory hole, preferably one played by Mr Sumner himself.  Sting's shows have always suffered when they lost him in that role.  Inverting the rock concert from the rock concert presented a more relaxed environment and allowed Sting to take a Storyteller approach, becoming more more verbose than normal.

There were the usual tracks as expected: Every Breath You Take, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, Fields of Gold.  Most intersting were the tracks that never made a standard setlist (at least in modern history), When We Dance, End of the Game, Moon Over Bourbon Street and Russians were all given a new dimension by the orchestra, with Russians particularly enhanced by having its Prokofievian themes amplified.  The setlist featured heavily on Sting-2 tracks (1997-) and these changed relatively little, being overproduced to begin with.  The pre-1996 material, particularly the tracks from the 1990 quartet were most noticably reconstructed, however Why Should I Cry was a welcome reactivation [2] and the audience began to react much more enthusiastically after its performance.  Mad About You and Shape of My Heart also received classy and sophisticated renditions.  King of Pain drove the show into high gear, leaving only Sting's lack of a bass holding the show back from hitting a relative 11.

Setlist:
If I Ever Lose My Faith / Englishman in New York / Every Little Thing She Does / Roxanne / When We Dance / Russians / Straight to My Heart / Why Should I Cry / Whenever I Say Your Name / Fields of Gold / Next To You /  A Thousand Years / I Hung My Head /  Shape of My Heart  / Tomorrow We'll See / Moon Over Bourbon Street / Shape of My Heart / End of The Game / My Ain True Love/ All Would Envy / Mad About You / King of Pain / Every Breath You Take /*/ Desert Rose / She's Too Good For Me / Fragile / I Was Brought to My Senses (a capella)

* Freebird 

+: King of Pain / Dominic Miller / 2 Soul Cages songs / Dominic Miller playing Soul Cages songs

-: No bass playing by Sting - you just can't feel cellos like a good electric bass.  Too many Sting-2 tracks, notably Whenever I Say Your Name.


[1] Sting has been playing one-off shows with this band recently, and since he has Dominic, David Sancious and Vinnie Colaiuta working together again, hopefully they can do a full scale tour.

[2] Dominic's guitar sound on The Soul Cages is perhaps the most uniquely interesting guitar tone I've heard.  And it's so specific to that album, I suspect it will never be used again, so after 19 years in obscurity it's great to hear it again, worth the price of admission alone.  Any to chance to hear tracks from that album is a wrothwhile endeavor , perhaps someone can convince Sting to do a 20th anniversary tour and resurrect the 1991 band and setlist.