Passion of a true professional...

Sting transformed an arena into a concert hall for a few hours - the musician, who doubled for his performance late last fall last night, gave a similar, yet completely different concert on his return to Budapest. More Hungarian sentences, fewer connecting lyrics, a local orchestra and a female conductor: even in headlines we cannot describe the two-hour concert with that much.

Sting performed last night with the Budafoki Dohnányi Orchestra, which had already accompanied him in Graz: it was a good feeling to hear Hungarian names after the solo runs, and the Hungarian band contributed greatly to Sting, who introduced his musicians after the second song, establishing a direct connection with the audience. All this without getting anything instead of last year's story-provoking connecting lyrics. Of course, there were many "returning" concertgoers who already knew the little jokes and stories, but a little more communication would have enhanced the atmosphere even more. It is true, however, that the musician had memorized a few words and phrases, so - albeit in a slightly interesting articulation - we could hear him say in Hungarian that ''after the next number we will have a twenty minute break''.

But let's not rush ahead to the halftime. With the first songs, including 'If I Ever Lose My Faith In' You and Englishman In New York, there was a solid momentum even when it came to ballads. As we could observe last year, Sting also gave space to soloistic expressions in the case of those sitting behind him - a very nice example of this was the violin solo of 'Whenever I Say Your Name', in addition to the already mentioned Englishman... In the latter, the vocalist, incidentally a ''civilian'' jazz singer Jo Lawry, was also able to show what she is capable of with her pleasant voice, while Dominic Miller did not push herself to the fore for a moment. Once again, the musicians were in perfect harmony - we heard a team, not a rock band and a random orchestra behind them.

The "frontman" brought exactly the same depth of experience that we had last year. Goosebump-grabbing, expressive singing, accompanied by some guitar, harmonica or rattle in hand. However, with the rattle, we reached a critical point. In the back third of the arena, the sound of the rattle and cymbals reflected so strangely from the walls, especially in the quieter parts of the songs, that one had the feeling as if there was a techno party going on next door, which somewhat spoiled the enjoyment of the concert.

Rarely, but it was also heard that the singer was not touring all the concert stops with the same band: really only a few times, but there were uncertain sounds in the accompanying music. But I could not bring up more negative things about the concert than this, even with the greatest malice - and there is no malice. The packed arena audience saw a sensitive, very enjoyable, and literally beautiful performance, and it all ended with numerous encores.

It was good to see and hear again the songs that we had already discovered eight months ago how fantastically, how differently they sound when wrapped in a symphonic robe. Sting is a professional, but his songs don't get colder because of that, in fact - they are even more full of emotion, so we can feel the ordeal of a vampire and a cheated, elderly husband one after the other, to name just two examples. The Symphonicity concert provided an unforgettable experience for the second time, now conducted by Sarah Hicks, with new flavours, but with the old values. I would see it a third time, if possible...

(c) Metropol by Krezinger Szonja