Sting's Madison, WI concert

May 15, 2001

Review by Marisa Meisters.

Sting seems to know exactly how to delight his audiences, no matter how many shows he plays. The Madison crowd cheered loudly as the house lights went down and "A Thousand Years" started up.

Sting kept the audience interested by following up with one of his older hits, "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free." The audience remained on their feet for the whole song, even despite Sting's minor vocal glitch midway through one of the verses. Sting and the band then segued immediately into "We'll Be Together", another good crowd pleaser.

Sting waited until "After the Rain Has Fallen" before unleashing the members of his band to shine on their own solos. Trumpeter Chris Botti started the song out with a nice solo, and kept Sting on his toes throughout the song. Manu Kache (drummer) showed of his French language skills during the rap section (both in the middle and at the end of the song), and Sting's new keyboard player (Jeff Young) had a brief opportunity to shine as well.

Next, Sting cracked a joke about having been on the Ally McBeal TV show the previous week: "If any of you saw me on Ally McBeal this week, don't think you can sue me for looking at your wife!" He then proceeded to introduce the band.

The next coupling of songs included two classics from The Soul Cages: "All This Time", and "Mad About You". On "Seven Days," Botti returned to the forefront for more solos. This was followed by "Fill Her Up" and "Fields of Gold."

The first of Sting's Police hits for the night included "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic." The whole audience rose to its feet in one electrified moment; this is the point during which Sting definitely won over the crowd.

"Moon Over Bourbon Street" was also well received, especially as Botti played the longest one-note solo (probably) ever held during a Sting concert - it must have lasted at least 30 seconds or more. But not to be outdone, Sting attempted the same thing, as he sang the last word of the song. I think the two of them tied!

The audience was more alive than ever at this point and heartily enjoyed clapping along to "Brand New Day" and "Englishman in New York," the former of which also included an "echo" type of duet between Sting and keyboardist Kipper during the middle and end portions of the song.

"Roxanne" was not a surprise in the set list, and again the audience was happy to sing along with the "Roxann-o" chorus in the middle and end, and cheered for Sting's signature jump at the end.

While Cheb Mami is not touring with Sting on this portion of the tour to perform "Desert Rose," Sting did a nice job singing (or more appropriately, humming) Cheb's opening verse.

"When the World Is Running Down / Bring on the Night" featured the usual extended keyboard solo, performed by Young, whose synthesizer sounded more like an organ than a keyboard for this particular solo - a nice touch to one of Sting's all time set list classics.

For the first encore, Sting again had the audience on it's feet for "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You" (which featured another Botti solo) and an upbeat version of "Every Breath You Take." The final encore featured a wonderful acoustic version of "Message in a Bottle" which the audience adored, followed by "Fragile." Sting actually played the last note of the song an octave lower than usual.

As usual, Sting and his band were in great shape for the show, and their love for performing was very apparent again.

I owe a special thank you to Susan H. from Indiana for so generously giving me her extra front row ticket! Susan is living proof that fellow Sting fans are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet.