Sting live in Kentish Town was everything you expect him to be...
 

The former Police frontman and solo superstar returns for a welcome homecoming as his kicks off his tour.

This relatively intimate night at Kentish Town Forum – the first of four scaled down shows across London this week – was something of a homecoming for Sting.

Sting lived in nearby Highgate (“upper Kentish Town”) in the 90s, he told us, before leaving for a “small house in the countryside… well actually it was more of a castle.” He then movingly dispatched the song inspired by those surroundings, “Fields of Gold,” a ballad so good that Paul McCartney once claimed it was the one song he wished he’d written. It was what we’ve come to expect from Sting: some knowing self-regard with the receipts to back it up.

But this wasn’t a night for indulgence. This version of the man born Gordon Sumner – billed as Sting 3.0 – saw him in back-to-basics crowd pleasing mode. There was no grandstanding on world events, no songs from his array of peculiar projects (no Elizabethan flute, and certainly no Shaggy) and little in the way of the indulgent noodling he’s prone to. This was Sting in his original form: strapping on the bass and leading a three-piece band through a career’s worth of expertly crafted reggae influenced pop-rock. Squint and it could have been 1978 all over again. It suited him.

With his Madonna-style head mic allowing him to meander the stage looking rather pleased with himself, in his tight t-shirt and glowing tan he came over like a wellness guru about to stage a lecture on the benefits of a probiotic diet (though at 74 he looked great, so whatever he’s doing is working). He launched straight into “Message in a Bottle,” the first of 10 songs from The Police, half of the 21-song set, with drive and purpose. While drummer Chris Maas is no Stewart Copeland and long-term guitarist Dominic Miller no Andy Summers (probably just as well given the pair are currently suing Sting over lost Police royalties), they proved a dynamic duo in the way they attacked “Can’t Stand Losing You” and “So Lonely;” they helped turn “Driven to Tears” into an impressive squalling racket. The sinister, deathless “Every Breath You Take” was knocked off nonchalantly.

A mid-section of deeper cuts brought a slight lull, but a forgivable one given the sheer number of hits either side. The soulful, slower solo hits were a treat throughout: “If I Ever Lose my Faith in You” (the line about losing faith in politicians brought a huge cheer from the hungry crowd) and particularly the beautiful “Shape of My Heart”, Sting’s aged voice doing enough to rise to the moment. “Roxanne” might have been extended a bit too far into weird reggae breakdown (Sting does love his “eey-oh” call and response trick) but it was still a fun encore before delicate ballad “Fragile” closed on a sombre note. By stripping everything back, Sting found a convincing way to update his past.

(c) The I Paper by Shaun Curran

Sting’s post-Police reinvention is thrilling (and quite familiar)...

Sting 3.0 relies on the style of the 80s pop trio, but it’s sleek and dazzling stuff.

Three men committed a smash-and-grab raid in north London last night. Call The Police! In an act of brazen nighttime daring, rock superstar Sting led a tightly drilled trio into the dingy environs of the Forum in Kentish Town and blasted through a set of familiar hits with a panache that was breathtaking to witness.

I’m not sure how Sting’s former bandmates in The Police will feel about this revival of their USP. Along with drummer Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers, Sting (as bassist, singer and songwriter) was part of one of the most successful trios in pop history. Although their working relationships were rather embattled at times, The Police ruled the charts from 1977 to 1984, and had a brief, lucrative reunion in 2007 to 2008. Sting’s new band, Sting 3.0, formed in 2024, recreates the lean but loose format of The Police with drummer Chris Maas and guitarist Dominic Miller (Sting’s sideman for 30 years); but, crucially, Sting himself has complete control (the way, one gets the impression, that he has always preferred it).

The resulting band of hired hands lack the gladiatorial intensity of The Police at full blast: a trio who really pulled songs apart and played as much against one another as with each other. Instead, Sting 3.0 offer a sleek togetherness and dazzling musicality, one thrilling hit segueing into the next. A full half of their 22-song set were Police hits, with the other half comprising remodelled Sting solo classics. The format allowed the bandleader to reinvent such fantastic songs as Englishman In New York, Shape of My Heart and Desert Rose, in the lean, spacey and immensely pliable style of The Police.

Remarkably slim and fit at 74 – a walking advertisement for the power of yoga – Sting wandered the stage with his bass guitar and headset mic like he owned every inch of the space, tossing out crowd-pleasers with an air of imperial elan. “When I lived in London, this used to be my local,” he said of the 2,300-capacity venue. “Then we moved to a nice house in the country. Well, more of a castle, actually.”

Sting is playing four dates in London, with the next three sold out at the 5,000-capacity Apollo in Hammersmith. But the truth is that he could sell out even bigger venues, and a reconvened Police would easily pack stadiums. Evidently, Sting prefers the intimacy that small venues allow. His perfectly formed songs were sharp and recognisable but frequently blew up with extended codas in which Sting’s liquid bass playing, Miller’s intricate guitar and Maas’s explosive drumming interweaved spectacularly. The result was criminally entertaining.

(c) Daily Telegraph by Neil McCormick