Carcassonne. Sting at the Cité: the message has aged well...

After 2006 and 2015, Sting returned to the Cité yesterday for a sold-out concert, dressed in ponchos and plastic capes. At 67, the English singer and bassist enjoyed revisiting his global hits, singing along.

It wasn't easy, as he wasn't particularly well-known, despite 3 million albums sold and a collaboration with Suzanne Vega in 2009, to warm up a room dotted with anxious fans, who came for Sting, equipped with colourful ponchos and makeshift transparent capes. Wondering whether today's "stage," eagerly awaited for months, would go ahead or be cancelled, like earlier in the Tour de France. The Alaphilippe of the evening, hung on, alone on stage with his guitar, but only lasted 20 minutes. At 9 p.m., the heavy waiting began, eyes fixed on the sky. Then came Sting, greeted by a standing ovation before he had even delivered his introductory story.

"Let's start with 1976. I was the lead singer of an unknown band, we weren't making any money, but I was well off because I was a schoolteacher," Sting then recounts the genesis of "Roxane," which appeared in his imagination in his hotel room at the Gare St-Lazare station, where a Cyrano poster hung. On guitar, with only two backing singers and a few discreet cymbal clashes, Roxane seemed almost more alive than it had been in 1976. Like many other songs in the Englishman's repertoire, including the astonishing "Wrapped Around Your Fingers" sung in reggae, or the bluesy "Brand New Day" accompanied by a 15-year-old kid on the harmonica.

Want more? "Shape of my heart" accompanied by a young, very soulful male voice, or "Walking on the moon" Vélodrome stadium version, with a choir of 3,000 people. "Russians" from his first solo album, in the last encores, with "Fragile" It's certain that with 43 years on stage (and yes, this athletic British man is 67 years old), the message has aged well. Rock, blues, reggae, pop, rock and roll ("Next to you"): Sting has shown us all the colours, to the great delight of the spectators wrapped up in their colourful ponchos.

      
(c) La Depeche by Xavier Coppi