Cornetto FreeMusic Festival Milan...

"The real protagonist is you" is the slogan that Cornetto FreeMusic has chosen this year to launch the new Festival's concerts. And, indeed, the crowd that packed Piazza del Duomo, reaching the Galleria and Corso Vittorio Emanuele, actively participated in Friday night's free concert, culminating in a mega-chorus of "Every Breath You Take," the legendary hit by The Police.

The musical marathon began shortly after 6:00 PM: in a scorching piazza, a select few attended the performance of Fiction Plane, an English band fronted by Joe Summer, Sting's twenty-nine-year-old son. This isn't the first time Cornetto FreeMusic has hosted artists: last year, again in Milan, Irene Fornaciari, Zucchero's eldest daughter, performed.

As the crowd grew, Monopolio di Stato, young Milanese talents emerging from the 2006 Audition selections, took turns on stage, along with Mattafix, who won over the crowd with their soul smash "Big City Life." Negramaro entered the "big league" scene: in front of an already large audience, the Salento band delivered their intensely Mediterranean-infused rock, and " Mentre tutto scorre" (While Everything Sweeps) gave the younger crowd a run for their money.

It was around 10:30 PM when Sting took the stage, accompanied by Lyle Workman and Dominic Miller on guitars and Abe Laboriel on drums, a lineup already well-established on other stops on his "Broken Music" European tour. Sting's only Italian date, with a repeat performance in Naples on Sunday, June 25th, at the Cornetto FreeMusic Festival, thrilled 100,000 fans aged 10 to 50 with the Police's evergreens and the most captivating songs from his solo career.

Broadcast live on All Music, which for the occasion "lent" its VJ Alvin to assist Ambra Angiolini in hosting the evening, the concert reconfirmed the enormous appeal and unifying power of the FreeMusic formula, offering the city a new, unforgettable event.

(c) 365live.it"

His jazz-clad pop lights up Piazza del Duomo...

It matters little whether there were one hundred thousand or one hundred and fifty thousand people cheering Sting's return to Milan yesterday in the scorching heat of Piazza Duomo. A great concert, in its own way, as the former Police member has accustomed us to, and it's a shame the square didn't offer the best sounding board for a show where, inevitably, the logic of the Event prevailed over the needs of the audience. And the slightly a priori enthusiasm over the informed attention that befits great music. This is part of the intrinsic mechanisms of large summer gatherings, so never mind. Let's console ourselves with the great applause Sting received and, before him, the bands that preceded him on stage, introduced by Ambra Angiolini and Alvin. First up, here's Fiction Plane, a band led by the artist's son, Joe Sumner, twenty-nine, handsome, eager, and not too dissimilar in style and voice to his more famous father. Then there's Mattafix, a duo composed of Anglo-Caribbean Marlon Roudette and Anglo-Indian Preetesh Hirji, bringing an electronic soul rich with ethnic influences and bluesy references. Then there's the young Monopolio di Stato, delightful and applauded, and the Mediterranean rock of Negramaro, the six Salento musicians discovered last year by Caterina Caselli: always talented and captivating, but perhaps caught up in a kind of overexposure they should guard against, which could threaten their nascent success.

In any case, everyone received warm applause from the audience. But the wait, of course, was all for Sting.

Freed from promotional pressures - —the new album is still in progress, while his previous album, Sacred Love, has been out for some time - he has been able to explore a vast, multifaceted repertoire spanning a thirty-year career and history that few can match: from the pop-reggae he shared with the Police in the 1970s to the solo breakthrough inaugurated by The Dream of the Blue Turtles, a miracle album of splendid melodies, jazz echoes, and rich, rich colours. Then came the memorable encounter with Gil Evans at Umbria Jazz, other albums of varying quality, and the discovery of Arabic "modes" - the sensual "Desert Rose" being a prime example - as well as Latin and Asian influences, all in the name of a world music of the noblest kind. And his exploration of the great classical repertoire: the revisitation of Giordanello's baroque aria "Caro mio ben," the rigorous studies of Bach's Cello Suites, and the work on John Dowland's Renaissance music, which should be featured on his next album.

Hence a repertoire born from a wide range of cultures and healthy anxieties, which would have required a more intimate venue and less cluttered acoustics. After all, Sting has done everything he can to solicit the approval of an extraordinarily broad audience, mostly young, less sensitive to nuance and more focused on established hits. Hence, many Police songs - starting with the inevitable "Roxanne," "Synchronicity II," and "Message in a Bottle" - and others from his solo career, prudently chosen among the most "edible." Remade, then, with a thoughtful update, thanks also to the contribution of a well-established band, featuring Dominic Miller and Lyle Workman on guitars and Abe Laboriel on drums.

A beautiful visual impact - with the combination of projected images and mesmerizing light effects - and highly evocative music ensured the concert's charm, following a recipe Sting has mastered for years. Here are "Fragile," which concludes the concert with its persuasive, serpentine melody; "An Englishman in New York," "Walking on the Moon," "Desert Rose," "Fields of Gold," "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You," and finally, the highlights of the final "Sacred Love," which also includes "Shape of My Heart," from the concert dedicated to the tragedy of September 11th, and which restored the English musician to the prestige and nobility of style that had seemed to fade over the years.

At least one hundred thousand people - difficult to quantify with absolute precision, at a free concert - crowned every song, every solo, every drum roll with thunderous ovations. Nothing else could have been expected, on a heated late-June evening, from a crowd favorite. And so it was, until the final rosary of encores.

(c) Il Giornale by Cesare G. Romana