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Sting’s Return to the Power Trio Format Delivers Triply Good Results in a Mini-Residency at L.A.’s Wiltern: Concert Review
Sting is touring as part of a power trio for the first time since his Police days. A five-night stand at L.A's Wiltern proved the power of three.
At the show we caught midway through the L.A. stand, Sting used the phrase “muscle memory” at one point — in the service of mentioning that a song he hadn’t played since trotting it out on tour last year (“I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying”) had easily come back to him after all. For the first two-thirds of the show, the rocking out was punctuated by mini-“VH1 Storytellers” moments, in which Sting would set up the song with 30-45 seconds of discourse about the writing or subject — just enough to give the veteran attendee something extra to chew on, and stopping well short of anyone’s boredom threshold. Hence, we learned that the agnostic performer was inspired by 2 Samuel 11:26-27 for “Mad About You” (he could have just said “David and Bathsheba,” but citing verses is more fun), or that he wrote “I Burn for You” about an obsessive love as a schoolteacher while making his class take a pop quiz, or that “Fields of Gold” is about the barley growing outside his house.
Or read this on Variety
