Even with mistakes, Sting can still shake the house down

Geoff Carter

Friday, Oct. 15, 1999 | 9:03 a.m.

"We made some mistakes," Sting admitted, near the end of his set at the Hard Rock's the Joint Thursday night.

I thought it a brave admission. It was the first show of his "Brand New Day" tour, in support of his strongest material in a decade, but that doesn't make the first night any easier. The capacity crowd didn't know the new material yet. He had not played a show with his touring band in three years. I can't begin to imagine what it feels like: stepping in front of a crowd that probably remembers more of your songs than you do and singing that first note. Who has time to ponder mistakes when there are more terrifying realities at hand?

However, having said that, Sting did make some fairly notable mistakes. And they're probably not the mistakes he's thinking of. He was probably thinking of timing errors, bad notes; I'm thinking of a set that dragged at times, lumped most of its high-energy numbers together at the end, and made me seriously wonder if he was going to play any of the music he made with the Police.

But it was the first night of the tour, so we'll put those problems aside for the moment, and concentrate on what went right. Most of the new songs, particularly "After the Rain Has Fallen" and "Perfect Love ... Gone Wrong," shimmered like diamonds. And "Desert Rose," the most lovely and natural piece of song writing to come from Sting's pen in a long time, truly mesmerized.

When he sang its opening verse -- "I dream of rain / I dream of gardens in the desert sand" -- it sent chills down my spine, just as his last tale to the desert, in the Police's "Tea in the Sahara," still manages to do some 16 years after it was released. It's kind of hard to believe that the same musicians who made that beautiful "Rose" bloom -- drummer Manu Katche and guitarist Dominic Miller were standouts -- made mistakes that anyone but Sting and themselves could detect.

No, the problems with Sting's performance were glaring, and far more obvious than a muddied bridge or momentarily forgotten vocal (I have to say I respect Sting's unapologetic use of a music stand and sheet music: even Mick Jagger is using a carefully-hidden telePrompter these days). Lumping all the Police numbers together at the end -- a sharp version of "When the World Is Running Down You Make the Best of What's Still Around," a note-perfect "Every Breath You Take" and an unnecessarily long "Roxanne" -- counts as a mistake.

Playing every song from the 2-week old "Brand New Day" also constitutes a flub, with so many good songs ("King of Pain," "It's Probably Me," "Why Should I Cry For You?") going unperformed. And fond though Sting may be of the brooding "A Thousand Years," he may want to try opening his next few performances with something that will get the fans on their feet -- and keep them there.

Still, it was a good evening all told. Sting's voice was rich and clear, and when he put his back into it, he ably proved he could still shake a house down. The faults lay not with the star, but with his set list.