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Sting in
Conversation review
by Jon
Andriessen
The
Centaur,
Cheltenham
Wednesday,
November 24
 In a one-off event to
publicise next year’s Cheltenham International Jazz Festival, pop legend
and friend of the Earth, Sting came to Cheltenham and sold a lot of books.
You see, he’s not just a musician, singer, sex god and planet saver, he is
also the author of Broken Music, the story of his 53 years of life. For
some reason he refuses to call it an autobiography preferring the modest
moniker ‘a literary piece of work’.
On stage in front of a thousand intrigued punters, music biographer Robin
Eggar ran Sting through the usual interview questions and no, The Police
will not be reforming, he wasn’t upset at not being asked to sing on the
new Band Aid single; yes, he is a sex god; he doesn’t mind The X Factor
and he writes on a computer - not with pen and paper - because ‘it looks
real’.
 Sting also revealed that his hero is Nelson Mandela due to his ‘compassion
and wisdom for humanity. I’ve never met him,’ he said, but just in case we
begin to suspect he‘s not that big a celebrity – after all, The Spice
Girls have – he adds humbly, ‘but we correspond.’
Going to see Sting in conversation is a bit like watching David Beckham
play cricket – it’s just not what they’re suppose to do. Despite rumors of
a guitar somewhere in the building the songs never showed up and we were
left humming tunes in our heads to drown out the chitchat.
Well, there’s always next year’s Jazz Festival to look forward to.
(This article originally
appeared in the Stroud News And Journal December 2004)
© Jon
Andriessen
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