Sting’s Return to the Power Trio Format Soars in LA: Concert Review

Welcome back, Sting +2 … or, in the parlance of the current tour, “Sting 3.0.” Power trios are one thingand some four decades after he was last officially a regular, sustained member of one, Sting has returned to see the glory of the maxim that triads are rad. (Sorry, we actually just made that up.)

Sting is joined on this year-plus tour (which began in September and has dates booked through October 2025) by his guitarist of the past 35 years, Dominic Miller, and a not-so-long-time drummer, Chris Maas. And that’s it. And with no offense intended to the additional battalions of brilliant players who have joined him on other tours over the years to say that not only are they not missed at the moment, but it is greatly to the benefit of the audience that Sting has saved on labor costs this time around.

This is as close as we could probably get to getting a Police Reunion Tour in 2024-25. Of course, it’s not so optimal in some respects, as Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers are far from completely interchangeable on the early band material that fills a decent portion of the set list. But it’s more upbeat in others, as (unlike the actual Police reunion tour in 2008) it includes a host of selections from the nearly 40 years of solo records he’s released since then – acted as if he had recorded them with the police.

Plus, he’s probably in a much better, more engaged and generous mood than he would be on a reunion tour, and he’s certainly playing more intimate venues than in the imaginary scenario. The “Sting 3.0” tour will hit bigger venues next year, including some co-headlining dates with Billy Joel. But the scenario for fall 2024 has been to play small to mid-sized theaters, sometimes for so many nights that the engagements almost count as a Las Vegas-style mini-residency. Such has been the case with his five-night stand at LA’s Wiltern, which concludes with a show on Sunday night, his last until January. It’s worth trying to get a last-minute ticket if you take advantage: He may never have done a more satisfying solo tour.

At the show we caught midway through the LA booth, Sting used the term “muscle memory” at one point — in the service of mentioning that a song he hadn’t played since pulling it out on tour last year (“I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying”) had come back to him easily. That term felt like it actually applied in a number of loose senses. Whatever the intellectualized equivalent of muscle memory might be, it was clear from the start the three players stood in an old-fashioned triangle configuration, with Sting not in the center but backstage.(Perhaps it was a holdover from all those years of feeling there would be trouble if he blocked the audience’s view of Copeland all night.) He had a wireless head microphone, and was therefore free to – and did occasionally – move to the center, or even switch sides of the stage with Miller. But the basic setup emphasized how much the star wanted to emphasize a kind of minimalist equality among players, though no one will mistake this for a democracy.

And muscularity was indeed the buzzword of the night … not only because Sting has apparently given up yoga and appears to have not an ounce of body fat at 73. Leanness in a lineup doesn’t have to mean any sacrifice in fullness; “stripped down” might be a phrase someone would use in a review, but it’s not something an audience member would think of at the moment. Watching this three-piece go through its paces was enough to make you wonder why the power trio remains the exception and not the norm in rock ‘n’ roll, even though a host of the most famous bands in classic rock story fits that format. (Think not just Cream, Nirvana and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, but bands that have a non-playing singer like the Who and U2.)

Maybe some current or future bandleaders out there will see a show on this tour and find the inspiration they need to… fire a foreign member? Jk.

While it’s unlikely that Sting regrets any of the years he spent elevating sidekicks as exalted as Branford Marsalis, it certainly seems like he’s getting a kick out of boosting himself back to the position of obvious lead instrumentalist on the bass. That’s not to say he doesn’t fill the two-hour slot he’s given himself each night with a good amount of his gentler material — including a closing encore, “Fragile,” that marks the one time the night he picks up an acoustic guitar instead of the electric bass. But it looks like he’s enjoying doing his hardest rocking solo tour to date as much as the audience. That’s evident in the single he released in September, ostensibly as a one-off tour teaser of sorts, “I Wrote Your Name (Upon My Heart).” He introduced it at the Wiltern as “romantic but loud”, and its swift simplicity marks it as perhaps the closest to garage rock he’ll ever do.

It’s a crowd-pleaser of a show to say the least – with some songs his more stable fans could probably do without hearing again, like “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”, but at today’s concert prices he probably won’t want to , that all first-timers leave cheated, so that’s out of the way early in the show. Other songs are just as much in demand but offer greater rewards in the live setting, like “Walking on the Moon,” with its still potent lunar reggae groove, and the sound of Sting holding notes forward and then staring down in the audience, challenging anyone not to be impressed by his breath control. “So Lonely” is another live standout from that time, getting looser and more jammy in the middle, emblematic of an entire show that finds its more relaxed middle sections expanded to also affect the feel of what comes before and after.

There are many song intros that may have a residual effect from the “My Songs” catalog and the tour that Sting didn’t do years ago… but only a little. For the first two-thirds of the show, the rock was punctuated by mini “VH1 Storytellers” moments, where Sting would open up the song with 30-45 seconds of discourse on the scripture or topic – just enough to give veteran contestants something extra to chew on, and stops far short of anyone’s boredom threshold. Therefore, we learned that the agnostic artist was inspired by 2 Samuel 11:26-27 to “Be on you” (he could have just said “David and Bathsheba”, but it’s more fun to quote verses) or that he wrote ” I Burn for You” about an obsessive love as a school teacher while making his class take a pop quiz, or that “Fields of Gold” is about the barley growing outside his house. (“I’ve got a little house in the English countryside. Well, it’s more of a castle really…” Yes, he further noted, he’s Stonehenge-adjacent.)

He’s also in the process of warning us about time signatures, like before “Seven Days”… leaving him to compliment the crowd after doing it on Wednesday: “Clap in 5/4 time – I’m impressed!” (Maybe he says that to all the crowds.)

The singer warned the crowd early on that he wouldn’t “say anything about the election because I’m British”, although the tuned-in crowd cheered the “lost…faith in politicians” in “If I Ever”. Losing my faith in you.” Any assent to “Men go crazy in congregations / They only get better one by one” in “All This Time” was quieter.

Needless to say, “Russians” won’t be coming back to Sting’s set anytime soon, or likely ever. But while Sting didn’t break his no-political-speak rule, it was hard not to feel it during closer “Fragile,” even though he’s been ending his encores with it for years. With the years advancing and times no doubt getting darker, some of us have never felt the fragility more – but that may also be another reason why a show as utterly indelicate and hard-rocking as this one feels so good right now.

(After a hiatus, Sting resumes with American shows in January in Phoenix and Sacramento, then heads to Central and South America before returning to North America with a Red Rocks two-night stand in May.)

Setlist for Sting at the Wiltern, 13 November 2024:

Message in a bottle
If I ever lose my faith in you
Englishman in New York
Every little thing she does is magical
Fields of gold
Never coming home
Love you
Seven days
Why should I cry for you?
All this time
I’m passionate about you
driven to tears
Fortress around your heart
I’m so happy I can’t stop crying
Can’t bear to lose you/Regatta de Blanc
Shape of my heart
I wrote your name (on my heart)
Walk on the moon
So lonely
Desert rose
The king of pain
Every breath you take
(encore)
Roxanne/Be Still My Beating Heart
Fragile