8 Great Things About Sting 3.0’s North American Opening Night In Detroit - Sting powered through a 20-song, hour-and-45-minute performance...

Playing in a trio is not without precedent for Sting; he was in this little band called the Police, after all.

But his Sting 3.0 tour - which began during the summer in Europe and opened its North American leg Tuesday night (Sept. 17) with the first of two shows at the Fillmore Detroit - has been a welcome return to the format after a good 16 years of touring with different and varyingly larger configurations.

“My inclination is always to try and surprise people in the songs I write or in the format I present the song,” he told Billboard via Zoom from New York, between the 3.0 tour legs. “I don’t think anyone was expecting a trio. “I’ve worked with these big seven, eight-piece bands, and it’s a bit like driving a Bentley. It kind of drives itself, and it’s comfortable. So I decided I would put myself out of my comfort zone in order to get something on the back end that wasn’t guaranteed - a risk, if you like.

“I’m enjoying the challenge, and it’s also fun looking, watching the audience go, ‘Wow, there’s only three people up there. We were expecting a bigger band’ and then enjoying the sonic clarity of it.”

Sting is joined in the endeavor by longtime guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Maas, a Luxembourg native who’s previously worked with Mumford & Sons, Maggie Rodgers and the Pierces. And while Sting fessed up to being “kind of anxious all the way up to the first show” in Europe, he quickly shed any doubts he may have had - or, perhaps, any lingering PTSD from the legendary combativeness within the Police.

“Halfway through that first gig I realized this is exactly what I want to do,” he said, explaining that, “There’s a space that you have been instruments - the clarity, the mutual listening between the members of the band, the risk factor, stripping the songs down to their basic essence and having them work. You take all the fat away, but the basic structure of the song is very satisfying.

“We’ve had a blast. There’s no let-up here. You can’t cruise. You have to be right on the money the whole time. But the songs are holding up. The singer’s holding up…'” And so, he added, is the player. “I began to notice how good I am at singing and playing the bass, actually,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve forgotten how well I did that.

“Nothing is impossible with a trio, I realize that,” he added. “And it’s not as if I’m completely new to the format. But I am surprised at how adaptable the songs and the arrangements are. It’s been so enjoyable.”

The couple of thousand or so fans in Detroit on Tuesday certainly shared Sting’s exuberance, generating a give-and-take energy that sustained throughout the 20-song, hour-and-45-minute performance, and these unquestionable highlights from it.

Not unusually, Sting and company did a fine job of combining the Police and his solo work, with eight of the former’s best-known songs in the setlist - including a ferocious rendition of “Driven to Tears” topical messages flashing across the video screen to “protest” and “react.” Sting’s “Desert Rose,” meanwhile, was sandwiched in the middle of a non-stop, main set-closing segment that began with the Police’s “Walking on the Moon” and “So Lonely” and finished with muscular arrangements of the Synchronicity hits “King of Pain” and “Every Breath You Take.”

Sting doesn’t have to work hard to keep ’em coming, of course. Using a headset microphone and playing a few songs seated, he also delivered Police favorites such as the show-opening “Message in a Bottle” and “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” an extended “Can’t Stand Losing You” and a long, rhythmically shifting version of “Roxanne.” From the solo front, meanwhile, came “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You,” “Shape of My Heart,” “All This Time” and “Englishman in New York.” For the show-ending “Fragile,” meanwhile, he put aside the bass and played acoustic guitar to send the crowd home “quiet and thoughtful.”

Sting mined 1991’s The Soul Cages for “Made About You” and “Why Should I Cry For You?,” both singles but not quite on A list status. From 2003’s Sacred Love, meanwhile, he plucked the solemn “Never Coming Home,” which he introduced as a musical note left by a woman as she was leaving her husband. The latter was also one of the night’s instrumental highlights, as Sting and Miller closed with an arresting, jammy outro.

“Dominic is just loving the harmonic freedom he has, and the colors he’s creating are extraordinary,” Sting said, and that was borne out all show long, as Miller, employing an array of tasteful effects, used the space between Sting’s bass and Maas’s drums to paint an array of rich chordings and instrumental passages that elevated just about every song. His dexterous but discreet plucking filled in for the piano from the recorded version of “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” and he created his own interpretation of the Arabic break from “Desert Rose.” And his solos during “Driven to Tears and “So Lonely” were nothing short of heroic.

Sting, Miller and Maas recorded a new single, “I Wrote Your Name,” that’s been played throughout the tour and was formally released on Sept. 6. “It’s a romantic song,” he told the Detroit crowd. “It’s also quite noisy.” And with its punchy energy and raspy vocal (from “being in the middle of a tour and being fatigued”) certainly recalls the Police’s early release.

“It’s a surprising record from me - very, very basic, like maybe four and a half chords,” Sting said, adding that, “I’d like to make (an album) with this trio. I’ve got the bare bones of a few things. Playing every night, it’s still very experimental, so a lot of things are happening that weren’t planned and that’s the territory I will draw from to make a new album. It’s very exciting.”

Sting remained one of rock’s kings of call-and-response, leading several singalongs throughout Tuesday’s shows. He gave the fans an opening during “Every Little Thing…,” then said he’d invented the wordless “little improvisation” at the end of “Can’t Stand Losing You” when the Police played the now-defunct Detroit club Bookie’s during November of 1978. There was another extended give-and-take towards the end of “Walking on the Moon” and, of course, during the jazzy breakdown in “Roxanne.”

After recalling some of his history playing Detroit, Sting told the crowd, “I’m gonna sing a song about my home now,” explaining with smile that, “I’ve a little house in the English countryside - it’s more of a castle, really,” about two miles “down the hill” from Stonehenge. He said that when the Englishman is in England, “if you knock on the door, I’ll make you a cup of tea,” indicating that he’s been taken up on that offer in the past. He went on to say that “the other nice thing about my house is it’s surrounded by barley fields, and at harvest time - see where I’m going with this? - it’s surrounded by what looks like a sea of gold.” That, of course, led into a performance of “Fields of Gold.”

The trio plays Detroit again on Wednesday and will be in North America through mid-November, including performances at the Bourbon & Beyond festival on Thursday in Louisville and the Ohana Festival Sept. 28 in California. The full itinerary can be found at sting.com/tour.

The Sting 3.0 opening night performance in Detroit included:

Message in a Bottle
If I Ever Lose My Faith in You
Englishman in New York
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Fields of Gold
Never Coming Home
Mad About You
Why Should I Cry for You?
All This Time
Driven to Tears
Can’t Stand Losing You
I Wrote Your Name
Shape of My Heart
Walking on the Moon
So Lonely
Desert Rose
King of Pain
Every Breath You Take
Encore:
Roxanne
Fragile

(c) Billboard by Gary Graff

Sting gets back to basics at Fillmore Detroit as 3.0 tour kicks off its U.S. leg...

For months, it was one of the more intriguing dates looming on Detroit’s concert calendar: Sting would be stripping things back down to a trio format - for the first time in ages - and playing the cozy confines of the Fillmore Detroit.

That Police 2.0 premise came to life Tuesday night in a concert cleverly billed as Sting 3.0, the opening of a two-night stand at the downtown venue and kickoff to a rare U.S. club and theater tour by the seasoned English star.

It was a classy, tightly executed show for the capacity crowd of about 3,000, featuring a mix of Police songs and solo work, including signature hits and deeper cuts, as Sting was joined by longtime collaborator Dominic Miller on guitar and Luxembourg-born Chris Maas on drums.

Playing his most intimate Detroit gig in two decades, Sting was in strong voice out of the gate, ripping out lengthy sustained notes during “Message in a Bottle” and later “Walking on the Moon” in a proud display of his 72-year-old stamina. Some of the old Police songs were dropped a half-step or more in key, but when you’ve got “Roxanne” waiting in your encore, that’s forgivable at this point.

Miller’s lithe guitar and Maas’ well-rounded drum work locked in with Sting’s vocals and bass for the kind of lucid interplay that defines the great rock trios, bringing concentrated energy to songs like “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” and “So Lonely” while lending emotional air to “Shape of My Heart” and the melodic loveliness of “Fields of Gold.”

The overall effect was precise but loose, with Sting and company occasionally veering into vamps and breakdowns while largely sticking with the familiar song arrangements that keep an artist in the good graces of fans who have paid hundreds of dollars for seats. No lute concert, this.

The set list spanned the breadth of Sting’s 46-year public career, from those early Police hits to his latest single, the Bo Diddley-baked “I Wrote Your Name (Upon My Heart),” perhaps the most primordial rock ‘n’ roll song he’s yet concocted.

It was the sort of show that connected the broader artistic dots, from the crisply syncopated Police stuff to his jazz-kissed solo excursions, while showcasing the songwriting that runs as the through line to it all.

Donning a headset microphone, pop singer-style, Sting was an amiable master of ceremonies, introducing songs with personal anecdotes and recalling his earliest trips to Detroit with the Police. He’d even made a point to memorize the date of that first show at the local punk-new wave epicenter Bookies Club 870, on Nov. 5, 1978. (“I was 12,” he cracked.)

As he eased into “Englishman in New York” early in the set, Sting noted he’d never written a song about the Motor City. “Sorry,” he said. “What rhymes with Detroit?”

Well, there's “adroit," for one, and it was a fitting label for Tuesday’s Fillmore show, where Sting’s trio approach was especially effective on the night’s 10 Police songs, which included “Can’t Stand Losing You” (with a segue into “Reggatta de Blanc”) and a briskly played “Every Breath You Take” to close the regular set.

The solo material was served well, too, including a performance of 2003’s “Never Coming Home” that unfolded as a svelte jam, part of a rewarding night in a relatively small venue - and featuring a classic body of work imbued with fresh energy.

(c) Detroit Free Press by Brian McCollum

Sting shoots for 3(.0) and scores, while opening tour at the Fillmore Detroit...

Sting turned less into more - considerably more - as he opened the North American leg of his Sting 3.0 tour Tuesday night, Sept. 17, with the first of two sold-out shows at the Fillmore Detroit.

As the title indicates, the trek returns the multi-hyphenate British rocker to a trio configuration for the first time since the Police’s 2007-08 reunion. (It was also his first metro area appearance in eight years and his first as sole headliner since a 2011 date at the Fox Theatre.)

As such, the hit-filled 20-song, hour-and-45-minute was a testament to the open flexibility of Sting’s songwriting and to the chops he and his trio mates - longtime guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Maas - demonstrated in pivoting lushly produced recordings such as the Police’s “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” and Sting’s own “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You,” “All This Time” and “Desert Rose” into Spartan and still - and perhaps even more - powerful arrangements.

Sting was well aware of just where he was as he launched this phase of the tour, which played Europe during the summer.

Earlier on Tuesday he name-checked Detroit’s music heritage, specifically Motown and the MC5, in a social media post. Early on he recalled the Police’s Nov. 5, 1978 stop at the long gone Bookie’s Club 870 - “When I was 12,” the 72-year-old quipped - and losing his voice while attending a Tigers baseball game during the summer of 1983, which forced the postponement of a Joe Louis Arena concert.

And as the trio made a rhythmic change on the back end of the Police’s “Roxanne” during the encore, Sting told the crowd that “a sophisticated town like Detroit, you should get this.”

Primarily Sting and company - following a captivating half-hour solo piano set by Elew - revelled in the space afforded them in the trio configuration, attacking the uptempo fare with a balance of punky Police exuberance and years of experience, and filling quieter pieces such as “Fields of Gold,” “Mad About You,” “Why Should I Cry For You” and the show-closing “Fragile” - during which Sting switched from bass to acoustic guitar - with subtle but impactful nuances. Miller in particular took free reign throughout the night, pushing the arrangements with soaring textures and occasionally letting rip for a hot solos on the Police songs “Driven to Tears” and “So Lonely” and ushering out “Never Coming Home” in a muscular jam with Sting.

The trio’s brand new song “I Wrote Your Name" - described by Sting as “a romantic song… also quite noisy” - went over well with a crowd that spent much of the show on its collective feet and responding with gusto every time Sting orchestrated a call-and-response from the stage. In fact, he said the aforementioned Bookie’s gig was where he created the “little improvisation” during the Police’s “Can’t Stand Losing You.”

And things were already pitched high when the trio launched into a breathless non-stop run to close the main set, sandwiching “Desert Rose” between Police favorites “Walking on the Moon” and “So Lonely” on one side and “King of Pain” and “Every Breath You Take” on the other.

It was the kind of night - world-class performers, and performance, in an intimate space - that gets talked about for years, not unlike that Police show before a handful of people at Bookie’s. As fans left the Fillmore on Tuesday one was overheard saying, “I spent a s***load of money for these tickets, and it was worth every penny!”

She’d have been hard-pressed to find anyone to disagree.

(c) News Herald by Gary Graff