Classic songs take the Sting out of the weather

STING took a highly entertaining trip through his illustrious back catalogue on Saturday as he brought his My Songs tour to Geelong.

Held at Mt Duneed Estate in occasionally rainy conditions as part of the A Day on the Green concert series, the 90-minute show saw the 71-year-old sling on a head mic and his well-worn bass and keep the rhythm going through a setlist comprising mostly his own material but also some enormous hits from The Police.

With so many great songs both as a solo artist and with his former band, only completists would be disappointed with the 21 tunes played on the night.

Highlights included letting the backing singers show off their talents during “Heavy Cloud No Rain” and “Shape of My Heart”, smashing “So Lonely” into a brief detour into Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry”, and Sting’s occasional introductions to some songs, such as his musings on how broken hearts are useful to write a good love song.

“I’m not some callow youth singing about something he knows not of; I have real estate there,” he said.

“But you know the most boring love song? ‘I love you, and you love me’ – that’s a closed loop, there’s no way inside that story.

“Whereas ‘I love you, but you love somebody else’ – now that’s interesting. It’s painful, but it’s interesting.”

Sting brought out eldest son Joe Sumner (who played his own songs earlier as a support act) to trade lead verses on “King of Pain” and sing backing vocals on “Every Breath You Take”.

The two-song encore started with an extended, groove-filled version of “Roxanne” and ended with Sting switching from bass to acoustic guitar for “Fragile” – “At the end of the night, it’s my custom to play something quiet and thoughtful so you go home quiet and thoughtful,” he remarked.

James Reyne was the other support act and powered through a tight, punchy set made up of both his own songs and those recorded with Australian Crawl.

The next concert at Mt Duneed Estate is the Tent Pole music festival, to be held on Saturday, March 4 and featuring Pavement, Magic Dirt, Spiderbait and nine other bands.