Sting
I photographed Sting when The Police were becoming one of the world’s most successful pop groups. This concert was the culmination of their first global tour. They were headlining at a large festival with Squeeze, UB40 and Tom Robinson also on the bill. Just three years earlier I had seen them as the support act to The Pretenders in a dingy little pub in West London. For most of this show Sting played a regular electric bass guitar but he played this modern-design double bass pictured for a few of his songs. It was was lowered down from the lighting gantry above him on a cable.
Sting, whose real name is Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner was also branching out into an acting career. It was around this time that he was to star in the film version of The Who’s ‘Quadrophenia’ playing The Ace Face, the King of The Mods, a.k.a. The Bell Boy. His later acting roles had a limited success. By 1981 he was starting to move towards a very successful solo music career but The Police successfully reformed for a world tour in 2007.
