Cristina Magdaleno Galdona
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (EFE).- With a certain solemnity and armed with his inseparable bass, Sting (England, 1951) offered a leap back in time this Sunday in Gran Canaria, with a tour of the greatest hits of his career and from that of The Police, and with an audience more than willing to get into the Delorean offered by the Englishman, who succeeded with his proposal in front of more than 8,000 spectators.
The evening, the last in Spain of his “My songs” tour, came after stops in Bilbao and Tenerife and had a special guest as the sun began to set in the capital of Gran Canaria, by the sea: Joe Sumner, son of Sting , served as the opening act in advance of the concert to leave the public a little more predisposed for when the British star came out, who, if it weren’t for that halo that surrounds rock figures, could pass for a tourist who walks along the beach of Las Quarries in high season.
Thus, shortly after ten at night, Sting came out determined to sting the island public with an unbeatable trio of aces: “Message in a Bottle”, “Englishman in New York” and “Everything Little Thing She Does is Magic”. . “I am very happy to be in Gran Canaria,” he said in timid Spanish.
The Briton was in charge of demonstrating, as it happens with many of the members of the rock aristocracy, that age and Sting go separately, and during the almost two hours of concert in which he moves from one side to the other -he has resigned at the foot of the microphone and hugging the headband microphone a la Britney Spears- her 71 years do not appear anywhere and she interprets the classics of The Police and her own hits without giving up a certain intensity.
After the first three, the show moved closer to somewhat more sandy and unknown terrain, in which a good part of the main songs of the British solo career sounded, among which “Loving You”, “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You”, “Fields of Gold”, “Shape of My Heart” and “Mad About You”, which, like “Desert Rose”, brought the exotic echoes of world music that Sting has experimented with so much.
In this part, only one notable absence: “I Hung My Head”, the western made song that Johnny Cash made his own at the end of the 90s and that Sting has left out in his three concerts in Spain, although he interprets it often in other places.
After an hour close to introspection, it was time again to bring up the old songs from The Police, which continue to work like clockwork. Thus, “Walking on the Moon” and, especially, “So Lonely”, with a “snippet” of “Everything is Gonna Be Alright by Bob Marley”, brought the audience back into the concert, with a Sting who was knowing of the necessary tricks – easy choruses and palmas – to inject intensity among the fans.
In the last part, Sting got serious and the quintessential workhorses arrived, such as “King of Pain” and, above all, “Roxanne” and “Every Breath You Take”, by far the most celebrated by the public in Gran Canaria.
And to finish, the haven of peace that is “Fragile”, a memory, and one last sting, about the fragility of the human being and the invincible passage of time. “It will continue to rain again and again, like tears from a star, like tears from a star. She will continue to rain again and again, Saying how fragile we are, how fragile we are”. EFE
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