I used to go to Sting’s Rainforest Benefits religiously but after awhile I got sick of the format, ps I felt the same way about the Tibet Festival, and stopped. It is an expensive ticket for an unsatisfying evening. Too herky jerky and too inside baseball, to self congratulatory. I didn’t like it enough to pay the wee and am not philanthropic enough to care too much about the Rainforest.
But I was tempted by the line up on Thursday gig at Carnegie Hall, Steve Stills and James Taylor? And Renee Fleming? Maybe worth putting up with Sting for and if it wasn’t for the Wonder Years being on the same night, I would have invested $150 on a cheap seat (oxymoron right?). After reading Jim Farber’s review in the New York Daily News, I wish I could’ve been in both places, though, cmon, always the young in rock and roll. Jim wrote: “The repertoire couldn’t have been more happily chaotic. It almost seemed as if the organizers were engaged in some kind of contest to see how many genres they could jam into one night. The songs bounced from opera (Ms. Fleming on “O Mio Babbino Caro” and “La Ci Darem La Mano,” aided by Sting) to jazz (Chris Botti on Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain”) to township jive (Paul Simon on “Graceland”).
Here is the setlist:
What A Swell Party” (from “High Society”) Sting, James Taylor, Kevin Spacey
“That’s Life” Kevin Spacey
“O Mio Babbino Caro” Renee Fleming
“La Ci Darem La Mano” Renee Fleming
“Fire and Rain” James Taylor
“Sketches of Spain” Chris Botti
“When We Dance” Sting, with Alessandra Ferri & Herman Cornejo
“Walk On By” Dionne Warwick
“Anyone Who Had A Heart” Dionne Warwick
“Young Turks” Oscar Isaac
“America” Sting
“For What It’s Worth” Stephen Stills
Speech from Trudie Styler, with a cameo from ex-President Bill Clinton
“Amazonia” Stephen Stills
“Start Me Up/Jumpin’ Jack Flash” Lisa Fischer/Ivy Levan
“Born To Be Wild” Eliot Sumner
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” Joe Sumner
“Stand By Me” Sting and Patti Scialfa
“How Sweet It Is” James Taylor
“Graceland” Paul Simon
“The Boxer” Paul Simon and Sting
“Bridge Over Troubled Water” Sting and Paul Simon
“Love The One You’re With” All
