Sting - 6 Night Sold Out Shows At London Palladium – still great doesn’t he just know it

 

Sting  - 6 Night Sold Out Shows At London Palladium – still great

doesn’t he just know it

Editor Steve Hart 24/4/22

Pop Icon Sting - still shows he can pull in the crowd. After he sold out 6 shows at the London Palladium. 

Ex police singer opens his set with Russians, a 1985 single about the cold war which he reworked and reissued to raise funds for a Ukraine relief charity

Sting told the crowd “I’ve hardly played it in years, because I thought it wasn’t relevant any more,” he sighs. “But, in light of recent events …”Accompanied only by a Ukrainian cellist, Yaroslava Trofymchuk, the black-pleather-clad 70-year-old singer sings the song’s chorus and earnest central message:

 “Russians love their children too.” He cautions us: “Don’t forget, a lot of brave Russians are protesting against this war.”It could be mawkish, but Sting carries it off through his evident sincerity and, primarily, its haunting melody, pulled in part from Prokofiev.

Sting has always been a divisive figure. Ever since his faux-punk days in the Police he has been a consummate musical craftsman, cleverly weaving trace elements of rock, jazz, reggae and global music styles into punchy pop tunes and clearly shows how evident and good he knows he is.

Sting perfectly dispenses some of his ex bands classic songs which included, "Message in a Bottle, Walking on the Moon, Every Breath She Takes and Every Little Thing She Does is Magic"

The iconic star also sung hs new work which included "If It’s Love and Rushing Water," taken from his lockdown album The Bridge.

There is noodling aplenty. The sprung rhythms of Walking on the Moon segue into Bob Marley’s Get Up Stand Up and Sting looks very, very white. However for me Roxanne remains a masterclass in sublime pop alchemy but cannot emerge unscathed from a bout of sub-Cleo Laine scat-singing.

The sleek menace of Every Breath You Take still resonates 40 years on and, as a composer of infectious pop nuggets, Sting is perfect in every sense. But you leave the Palladium fullfilled knowing that he still is a master of his art, even after all these decades on.