{"id":883,"date":"2017-09-27T14:03:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T14:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=883"},"modified":"2026-06-27T14:06:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T14:06:40","slug":"sting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=883","title":{"rendered":"Sting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

October 1985, Hollywood Sportatorium, <\/strong>Hollywood, Fla.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is no musician who has taught me more than Sting. I was not aware of Nabokov, or what the term muckraking was, or anything about Synchronicity or Carl Jung before he sang about it. There is no better song about the plight of starvation in Africa than \u201cDriven to Tears\u201d. Sting was a teacher as much as he was a lyricist, and he made me want to learn.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll get to the Police later in this series because they were one of the most important bands of my life, and Sting (one of our great Renaissance men) was a huge reason why the band meant so much. When The Police broke up, I didn\u2019t take it well, but I look back now and see the five perfect albums the band created and understand why it had to split. You always want to leave the world wanting more, and you never do the same gag twice. Can you imagine the pressure of trying to follow Synchronicity<\/em>? No album would ever measure up. Sting knew this, he was always smart like that.<\/p>\n

So when he announced he was going solo, playing with jazz musicians who would challenge him like never before, it was intriguing and different. I was on board, because up to that point (much like Jack White in recent years), the man had done nothing wrong musically.<\/p>\n

The Dream of the Blue Turtles<\/em> was somewhat of a departure from The Police, it employed more instruments and did have a jazzier feel than most of Sting\u2019s earlier work. But it still had pop sensibility and smart lyrics \u2014 it was an album you could sit and digest \u2014 and while it wasn\u2019t another Police album, it was close enough to win my heart (and it did cover \u201cShadows in the Rain,\u201d but at a much different tempo). It would produce some hit singles \u2014 \u201cIf You Love Somebody Set Them Free,\u201d \u201cFortress Around Your Heart,\u201d \u201cLove Is the Seventh Wave\u201d and \u201cRussians\u201d \u2014 the latter a political song which captured the Cold War feeling of the time perfectly. \u201cFortress\u201d is an amazing song that I took to right away, and \u201cMoon over Bourbon Street\u201d has always been a favorite. It tells the story of a vampire on the prowl in New Orleans, and I\u2019m rather sure I heard it was inspired by the vampire chronicle of Anne Rice. Because of that song I read Anne Rice\u2019s stories about Lestat.<\/p>\n

Sting still got me reading.<\/p>\n

When word came out he was on tour, I was there, because there was no doubt part of the setlist was to include Police songs. I believe I went with my friend Rich, who was also a big Police fan, and off we went to the large airplane hangar in the middle of nowhere to see a musical hero.<\/p>\n

We sat up in the balcony off on the right-hand side, and were close enough to get a great view of the stage. Sting came out with his mighty band of musicians \u2014 Kenny Kirkland (keys), Darryl Jones (bass), Omar Hakim (drums) and Branford Marsalis (sax, percussion) \u2014 and CRUSHED it. They opened with a pair of Police songs \u2014 \u201cShadows in the Rain\u201d and \u201cDriven to Tears\u201d \u2014 before moving into \u201cConsider Me Gone,\u201d which Sting prefaced by saying it\u2019s the words he wants engraved on his tombstone.<\/p>\n

He would play several Police songs on this night, and it gave me an insight into the songs that meant most to him \u2014 all of which prefaced this new solo act he was part of. \u201cOne World (Not Three),\u201d \u201cWhen the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What\u2019s Still Around,\u201d \u201cDemolition Man\u201d and the amazing, AMAZING \u201cBring on the Night\u201d all point to Sting\u2019s desire to say something while challenging the listener with complicated music. He always said his most popular song \u201cEvery Breath You Take\u201d (which he played during the second of three encores) was a finger exercise, and while he knows he has to play it because of its popularity, musically it doesn\u2019t do anything for him. Of course he probably enjoys that so many people miss the song\u2019s true meaning.<\/p>\n

The band was amazing. It\u2019s not easy to find a drummer with the chops of Stewart Copeland, but damn if Omar Hakim was not up to the challenge. And any band who has Branford Marsalis in a supporting role has to have serious ability, and this one did. Sting said he was just trying to keep up with the talent around him \u2014 you could see why.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoon Over Bourbon Street\u201d was a highlight, Sting in the spotlight with Branford playing in the shadows, just stunning. He ended the set with \u201cIf You Love Somebody Set Them Free,\u201d then added encore No. 1 of \u201cRoxanne\u201d and a J.B. Lenoir cover of \u201cI\u2019ve Been Down So Long,\u201d and encore No 2 of \u201cEvery Breath You Take,\u201d \u201cDemolition Man,\u201d \u201cThe Dream of the Blue Turtles\u201d and Little Willie John\u2019s \u201cNeed Your Love So Bad\u201d. Sounds like the end? No. He came out, guitar in hand, and did an acoustic version of \u201cMessage in a Bottle,\u201d which was about as good as it gets. To this day, one of the best shows I\u2019ve seen. It was musical perfection with smart balance, led by one of great musicians of our time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 1985, Hollywood Sportatorium, Hollywood, Fla. There is no musician who has taught me more than Sting. I was not aware of Nabokov, or what the term muckraking was, or anything about Synchronicity or Carl Jung before he sang about it. There is no better song about the plight of starvation in Africa than \u201cDriven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":884,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[129],"class_list":["post-883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-sting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":885,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883\/revisions\/885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}