Sting
Appearing in: cincinnati, cleveland
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner — known universally as Sting — first rose to global prominence as the bassist and primary songwriter of The Police, the Newcastle-born trio who became one of the most commercially successful and musically influential bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. With songs like "Roxanne," "Every Breath You Take," "Message in a Bottle," and "Don't Stand So Close to Me," The Police blended new wave, reggae, and post-punk into a sound that was immediately identifiable and impossible to imitate convincingly. The band sold over 75 million records and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.
When The Police went on indefinite hiatus in 1984, Sting launched a solo career that most observers expected to be a modest footnote to his band work. Instead, it became a second act of comparable scale and artistic ambition. The Dream of the Blue Turtles (1985), recorded with an ensemble of jazz musicians including Branford Marsalis and Omar Hakim, signaled his refusal to simply replicate the Police sound for solo audiences. Subsequent albums — Nothing Like the Sun (1987), The Soul Cages (1991), Ten Summoner's Tales (1993), and Brand New Day (1999) — each explored different musical territories while maintaining his gift for melody and storytelling.
Throughout his career Sting has accumulated 17 Grammy Awards, three Brit Awards, a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and a Tony. He has sold over 100 million records as both a solo artist and member of The Police. His range extends from arena rock to intimate jazz-club performances to orchestral collaborations, and live he remains a commanding presence with a band that consistently draws from the best musicians working in any genre.
The STING 3.0 Tour — named for this next chapter in his performing life — brings him back to arenas across North America. At its core the show is what it has always been: a catalog of songs that have outlasted every trend that came and went around them, delivered by a performer who has spent fifty years learning exactly how to make them land.