The 2007 tour Sting should have never played: “An exercise in nostalgia”
Sting didn’t usually like going backwards at any point during his career.
There was never a time when he ever released a flat-out terrible album, but even when some weren’t treated with the same kind of respect as others, it was easy for him to take more chances whenever he made a record than worry about whether or not his audience was the same kind that catered to tunes like ‘Fields of Gold’. He didn’t want to be defined by one thing for too long, but it turned out that nostalgia could affect nearly anyone if they have the right in their face.
Then again, it’s not like Sting was ever trying to ignore the past whenever he performed. Even when he released his symphonic versions of his songs, he was still going back to the same kinds of songs that he made famous with The Police. No one is going to be able to outrun a song like ‘Every Breath You Take’ for as long as they live, but even if he moved into the adult contemporary world, Sting was more than happy to share his stories about being a part of one of rock’s great power trios.
But before he eventually got the band back together in 2007, though, Sting was already moving back into rock and roll territory. His latest solo band up until that time had already been focused on rock and roll tunes with Josh Freese on drums, so if he could turn ‘Demolition Man’ into the rock and roll juggernaut it was always meant to be, why couldn’t he convince his old bandmates to share in the fun as well?
After all, the band never did say a proper goodbye, and even if this was the last time that everyone was going to get to see them perform, it would be nice to see them go out with a bang rather than just split up. But when looking back on that tour, Sting said that he would have rather forgotten about the whole thing after he realised what he had got himself into when everyone showed up for practice.
Those tensions were still there from the moment that they started rehearsals, but they could at least be a little bit more diplomatic this time. That didn’t stop Stewart Copeland from going on his infamous tirade when his ability to put more beats into a song was questioned, but even if everyone seemed to be having a good time listening to ‘Synchronicity II’ and ‘Message in a Bottle’, Sting got the feeling that he was spinning his wheels a little too much by this point.
He had done this part of his career before, and he didn’t want to live a life playing his greatest hits every time he took the stage, saying, “At the time I labelled the tour an exercise in nostalgia. That was simply how I felt and is still how I feel today. I think it’s OK to be honest about your feelings and that was the way it went for me. It’s just how I saw it by the end, and let’s be honest, that’s not how I wanted to remember it. If I thought that would be the emotion I’d be leaving with, I wouldn’t have done it in the first place.”
And if you look at where Sting has gone from there, you can see why he didn’t want to be known as the nostalgic version of who he was in his 20s. You can’t expect someone like him to still be throwing it down like it’s 1979 all over again, and while his music has been a lot more mellow these days, it was much better for him to get his ideas out with someone like Dominic Miller than reminding everyone of what he had done back in his prime.
There are many ways in which rock stars choose how to age, but if you look at the way Sting approached his craft, he never wanted to feel like he was remaining stagnant. Every show an artist puts on should be a reflection of themselves, and Sting wasn’t about to be the kind of artist who made nostalgia rides every time he played.
