Bombastic party night - Sting and Shaggy proved to be an unusually dynamic duo, creating a good atmosphere among 7,000 at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival.

Sting and "mista lova lova" Shaggy have both been good at exploiting the commercial aspects of reggae music in their careers. When they released their joint album "48/876" this spring, of course, the usual accusations of watering down the music came from many critics. The strange thing was, however, that the album was well received by many of us who listened to more reggae than we might have enjoyed. No, hold on, we have enjoyed it. "Reggae fans will be positively surprised," wrote Jørgen "Joddski" Nordeng in the newspaper in Troms. "Now they are still creating a good feeling of warmer times, almost against all odds," I thought to myself. 

Warm times are coming. Kongsberg has had surprisingly similar daytime temperatures to Jamaica this week. It's true that the temperature has crept down to 20 degrees in the evening hours at the jazz festival, but it's still a good climate for reggae-based music. Shaggy and Sting are both showmen, who know a bit about which songs people want to hear. Which aren't just from the new album, although they're doing just fine, too.
 

They start with "Englishman In New York", now with the obvious addition of "Jamaican In New York". Then there's "44/876", the title track from this album named after the area codes of the artists' home countries. Sting sings about being haunted by the spirit of Bob Marley, and getting away from questionable British political tendencies.

They'll be through half of this new album at the concert, but that doesn't matter. They still have about 20 old songs for their old fans in their repertoire. "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" is still a bit magical, even if Shaggy goes "chitty-bom-bom" between the verses.

This is a proper joint concert, where both are on stage the whole time, helping each other's songs, and are no strangers to combining some of them. "Carolina" and "We'll Be Together" are unfortunately too heavy-handed, but "So Lonely" and "Strength Of A Woman" are much better. Some would have appreciated more of the toasting (the phenomenon later known as rapping) from Shaggy in "Love And Be Loved", but we have to admit that we are particularly interested.

 
Showbiz routines can be hard to avoid on such tours. Here Shaggy asks everyone to raise their lighters in the air when Sting is about to sing "Fields Of Gold", but almost no one smokes in Norway anymore, and no matter how many mobile phones come up, the lights don't work against the Norwegian summer sky. There are a few heavy moments musically too, but the next hit is never more than a song or two away. Soon it's "Angel" from Shaggy and another Police favourite with "Walking On The Moon".

It's questionable whether the political motif in "Dreaming In The USA" penetrates the audience immediately, but Shaggy inserts a fiery speech about all skin colours and religions to explain the content. "Out of many - one people" he explains that it's called in Jamaica. Sting actually puts on a prisoner's suit, while Shaggy appears in full judge's uniform in the court drama that unfolds in "Crocked Tree", also a legacy from the ska tradition, where such "court in session" songs were many.

Finally, they combine "Roxanne" and "Boombastic", and it's hardly necessary to tell you how popular it was. Yes, there will be an encore!

Sting's lesser-known, yet atmospheric "Desert Rose" is actually one of the highlights of the evening. Some people still appreciated the eternally youthful "Every Breath You Take" and "It Wasn't Me" afterwards. Two songs about male self-confidence, one with, the other without a twinkle in the eye. All that was left was to calm the mood with "Fragile", and let everyone agree that it had been a pretty nice evening.

(c) Dagsavisen