Thursday, June 26, 2025

Summer of Sting

 

After a lifetime of not encountering Sting (other than hearing music or watching films) I've now had two encounters in as many weeks. The first was a "tribute" singer who pretty much nailed Sting's material in a half hour set at a party in Edinburgh and then, in the distant flesh, the real deal, way out in the fabled, cloud covered city of Glesga. Working as a three piece, Chris Mass on drums, Dominic Millar or guitar and Sting on bass obviously - they sounded tight, almost perfect, even to my aged ears. 

Millar is an exceptional player and pulled off that rare live thing (in my opinion) of using just the one guitar for the whole set*. Players who change guitars for each new song really irritate me, they may well be pretentious twats, or so some might say. In two hours of solidly playing the same guitar I don't think he had to re-tune at all. The power, tonal range and stability of his either old or well reliced Strat was superb to experience live; a masterclass in working within a three piece band. He created so much space and colour albeit full credit to Andy Summers who did it all first. 

Obviously my rooted to the spot photos are a bit rubbish but we decided to stick with our space and not wander about, though the crowd, all mostly of a certain age, wasn't densely packed or badly behaved. A fine rain began to fall about 10ish and that quietly wrapped things up and we trudged off to rescue the car from an Ibrox car park. Many thanks to the ever present God's of Cornucopia for the free tickets, now I can safely delete all those waggy finger Ticketmaster emails.

*On the final tune he used an acoustic to record a loop and then played over it using the Strat. 

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