How Sting Performed Magic in Manila

For a guy of 71, Sting looked incredibly fit when he stepped out onstage at the Solaire Theater for the first of his two-night show here in Manila over the weekend. A typical septuagenarian might shuffle around the house, perhaps with a cane, occasionally yelling at the neighborhood kids to keep quiet or get off their lawn, but here’s Mr. Gordon Sumner flying halfway across the world, rocking out and still giving the people what they want. 

Of course, Sting’s lifestyle is well-known; he works out regularly and watches what he eats—not strictly vegetarian but close enough. Which is probably the reason why, even at this age, the man could still put on an excellent show.

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The British singer-songwriter, who is on his fourth visit to Manila, could have chosen to perform in one of the bigger venues, like the Araneta Coliseum, where he was last time, but that he chose the much smaller, swankier theater inside the Solaire Resort and Casino tells us he prefers being closer to his audience, interacting more intimately and organically with those who profess to loving his music.

Photo by Jasper Lucena / Live Nation Philippines.

That includes me. Most music fans have an origin story—or that moment when they first discovered or fell in love with a song or record and the artist behind it. I never caught Sting during his time with The Police (too young), but Ten Summoner’s Tales is one of my desert island picks—an album I discovered when I was 13 and whose cassette tape lived in my Sony Walkman for the better part of that year. I would discover later that it was one of the most defining records of his career, producing songs that would become signatures years after they came out.

And that led me down the proverbial rabbit hole—digging through his older catalogue before he became a solo artist, and following the material that came out after. None would match the impact TST would have on me, but it became easy to fall in love with the artist behind the music—thoughtful songwriter, talented guitarist, passionate vocalist.

All was on full display on his return engagement here in Manila. After a short 30-minute set of his son Joe Sumner—who seemed to have inherited his dad’s musicianship—Sting and his band launched immediately into “Message in a Bottle,” followed by “Englishman in New York,” and “Every Little This She Does is Magic.” He kept the banter to a minimum—except when he noticed a sleeping kid near the front row, which he kept ribbing about for the rest of the evening. He worked in a few songs that were newer or deep cuts: “If It’s Love,” “Loving You” and “Rushing Water,” but as expected, people most responded (sometimes physically—some were jumping up and down) when it was more familiar tunes, such as “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You,” and “Fields of Gold,” which, of course, are both from Ten Summoner’s Tales.

In “Brand New Day,” he challenged his harmonica player that the original recording featured Stevie Wonder himself, but Shane Sager, who is all of 28 years old, wasn’t fazed and proved he was up to the challenge.

Photo by Jasper Lucena / Live Nation Philippines.

As the night progressed, it became increasingly evident how much the show was like a well-oiled machine.  There was hardly any need for musical cues, and the entire seven-person crew, led by Sting himself, traded good vibes and energy off of one another. You’d expect nothing less from someone who’s been doing this for close to a half century. Legacy acts, for the most part, are a crap shoot: you never know where the artist is at that point, or whether he’s still in condition to perform, but there is absolutely no fault I could find about how Sting and his band performed that night. The vocals were on point, even on the high notes in songs like “So Lonely,” and “Desert Rose,” and his mastery of the bass—his instrument of choice throughout most of his career—was unparalleled. This could have been the Sting from 1993 or 2003 or 2013. 

For audiences, that was kind of the point. We watch these legacy acts because their music transports us to moments of joy or excitement, to memories we’d like to relive, and perhaps even to people we liked, loved, and lost. We can’t stress enough how the songs we grew up listening to can take us to emotional highs, even for just three or four minutes at a time. Yes, we can listen to the records over and over again, but when it’s delivered live right in front of us by the artist, the feeling is multiplied exponentially. That’s why we go to concerts, and that’s why we appreciate it when the artist gives it all he’s got to take us there. There’s magic in the space of a pop song, which would make artists like Sting wizards of the highest order.

By the time he performed “King of Pain” and “Every Breath You Take,” the audience was in full on ecstasy. He ended the regular set but came back out to do two more.

Photo by Jasper Lucena / Live Nation Philippines.

“What song should I sing,” he teased the audience. The answer was obvious, of course. The theater was bathed in red lights for an explosive rendition of “Roxanne,” followed by Sting solo on the acoustic guitar for perhaps one of his most poignant, “Fragile.” At that point, everyone was up on their feet, silent and mesmerized, before bursting into enthusiastic, genuine applause and appreciation. What else is there to say, except that it was magic.