Sting plays all the hits at Latitude Festival…

The singer delivered a crowd pleasing headline set at Henham Park.

More than most of his contemporaries, Sting has a remarkable ability to bend time. The singer and former frontman of the Police is 73 years old – a fact not lost on anyone in Henham Park, not because he looks it, but because he’s in better shape than any of us. It’s not just the startlingly lean and assured figure he cuts onstage with his electric guitar that makes the years melt away, but the cross-generational impact of the music. This is best exemplified by an image that repeats itself over and over throughout the crowd gathered before the Obelisk Stage: an adult with a small child in ear protectors perched on their shoulder, both of them belting the lyrics to ‘Englishman in New York.’

It’s certainly true that plenty of these parents could have been training their children on Sting albums for the most couple of months. The point still stands – the gasps of delight when small ears recognise the opening bars are not performative. Onstage, Sting wiggles his hips as he gets the crowd to echo back to him the lyrics “Be yourself, no matter what they say.” He’s not the world’s coolest granddad. He’s just cool.
 

It’s a set packed with crowd pleasers, and there’s plenty to choose from throughout Sting’s fifty year career. Opening with ‘Message In A Bottle’, he shows off a voice still just as clear and powerful, the song’s chorus more urgent than ever. ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’ has the crowd bouncing. He speaks fondly of the golden fields of barley that surround his home before launching into the hit that they inspired. The mood in the field is reverent. As impressive as it all is, Sting retains a pleasant unpretentiousness. He chats minimally to the crowd, there to play music far more than he is to act like the star of the show. He introduces his band members like he’s introducing one set of mates to another. He makes sure we take time to applaud for the BSL interpreter. There’s a general good feeling in the air, and Sting is very much the curator of it. 

As the set wraps up and hits ‘Every Breath You Take’ and ‘Roxanne’ float over the field, many of Latitudes tiniest ravers are up long past their bedtimes and still dancing. With the performance he’s just delivered, it doesn’t feel unrealistic to say that when those little ones return to Latitude as teenagers in ten years, Sting could still give them one hell of a headline show.

(c)Ticketmaster Discover by Caitlin Devlin