I went to see Sting (you know .. “Every breath you take..”) on Friday with Janet; he was playing at the Globe Arena in Stockholm. Since he’s one of Janet’s favorite artists, I try to get tickets whenever he’s in town.
The show was pretty good (although he’s not at the top of my list :-)) and lasted for about two hours (with Eskobar warming up the electronics). Sometime around the middle of the show, there was a video sequence that really didn’t need to be there. Apart from that, the whole crew gave a rock steady impression, with the drummer and one of the backing vocal ladies standing out.
The first half of the show was better than the second half; perhaps the sound technicians went to smoke some crack for the second half. Admittedly, really good sound is hard to achieve in the Globe Arena, but these guys are supposed to be professionals, right? And yes, good sound can be achieved there, Pink Floyd proved that during their Delicate Sound of Thunder tour (ages ago, man, I must be getting old).
The show got a fairly bad critique in the Daily News magazine (Dagens Nyheter/DN) in Sweden. I figure they guy who wrote it can’t be too fond of Sting. If it works for the audience, the show is good. “Good performance”, as far as music goes, is definitely in the eye of the beholder.