Sting in Hong Kong 2012!

Last night I had the chance to check out Sting live in concert at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center.  His "Back to Bass" Tour was making a stop in town and I was lucky enough to get my hands on a ticket. 

He's playing the Bass... hence the title of the tour! :-P

I can't say I am the biggest Sting fan in the world.... I haven't bought any of his CDs any time recently,  but if I recall correctly, I got the Police Box set in the early 90's as a gift and remember listening to it a bit (not nearly as much as my Led Zeppelin box set, but that's another story for another time...)   and I remember someone got "Ten Summoner's Tales" when I was in Sophomore year of College.

Needless to say I was expecting to recognize some of the bigger hits he was going to play,  but other than that I had basically no expectations for a great night of live music when I arrived in Wanchai.

The first thing that surprised me when I got to the hall was that this was a BIG concert.  7,000 seats to be exact, and amazingly enough, all sold out!  (I suddenly see Sting has more drawing power than I would have assumed...)  Props to Live Nation,  I didn't see almost any marketing for this show in the subway or online except for maybe a few eDM from HK Ticketing...  but somehow Sting fans found out.

Then Sting and his band started playing and I was really surprised. HKCEC's halls definitely are not known for their sound quality, but someone did a really good job on the sound tonight.   Pretty clear and not overpoweringly loud.   Then once Sting started singing,  I was impressed with the quality of his voice.  He sounds exactly like you'd expect him to sound.  A lot of times bands and singers sound different (and often less impressive) live.  Not the case for Sting... Sting on stage from the opposite end of a 7,000 hall sounded like I just like a CD of Sting would sound.  I was actually quite impressed.  (FYI - I wouldn't consider myself a concert aficionado by any means, but I do get to concerts quite often for my work...to the point where I don't even get excited, I'm happy to just sit down in the back and check my email during many of them.... so needless to say, I think know my way around this field a bit).    Anyway,  the sound and Sting's vocal quality were two more pleasant surprises.

With a solid sound and good back up band,  a music legend like Mr. Sumner here doesn't need a lot of theatrics to keep his show entertaining.  No dancers, no fancy lighting or elaborate stages.  He basically stands in the middle most of the time and just sings.  But if you got that, you don't need all the other bells and whistles, right?  

One other notable thing,  if I didn't tell you, you probably wouldn't be able to guess that this guy is 61 years old.  Still fit and trim... must be all that tantric yoga... I gotta start learning that stuff! :-P

The final pleasant surprise was that I realized about half way through that I knew pretty much every song on his set list (total he did 21 songs including encores,  I think I recognize 16 or 17 of them) about half were Police songs and half were solo.  All the classics you can guess.  King of Pain,  I'll be Watching You, Fields of Gold,  Roxanne and yes, Demolition Man.   All sounded quite good.    The only one I was not super impressed with was the rendition of Desert Rose... its not the same without that Algerian guy in it. :-P

One other thing to note that I liked.  Although Sting ended up doing like 3 encores,  he didn't screw around by going back stage and pretending like he wasn't coming out again until people cheered hard enough to be worthy of his presence on stage... literally he was back up on stage within a minute of the lights going out and ready to go again... why beat around the bush and waste everyone's time?  Sting's a pragmatic person apaprently.

Anyway,  thanks again to Live Nation for the opportunity to check out this concert.  When Sting comes back through Asia on his next tour,  look for me in the front row singing " " the loudest. :-P