Customer Reviews

Bring on the Night (Rpkg)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

No joke, I'm a huge live recording nut and I sincerely believe this may one of the 5 best live records I've everheard. It's the band, man. Sting is an incredible talent on his own, but when you assemble a band as tight as this, the results surpass even the greatness of the original material.

"Bring on the Night" is an exceptional recording by an artist who was searching for new ways to expand his creative musical boundaries. Putting together this band was a gutsy move on Sting's part, especially when you consider how popular The Police were when they broke up. Sting assembled some of the best Jazz musicians to expand and focus the intensity of his sound. What he achieved here is magical. Now, we finally get to enjoy this music as it was meant to be - Live and in living color!

"Bring on the Night" captures all the elements of Sting's brilliant past and focuses them through an expanded Jazz lense that opens up the melodies to provide space for some great spontaneous interactions. This music snaps, crackles and burns. The Jazz musicians, especially Branford Marsalis & Kenny Kirkland get to stretch out and really explore the rich songs that Sting creates. Listen to how well they lock in and groove on the title track, and again on "One World / Love is the Seventh Wave". The beautiful and haunting "Moon Over Burbon Street" could not have been captured any better. My favorite track is "Children's Crusade" - where Branford's Sax solo just hangs in the air. This band has great chemistry & it shows in the way they interact with each other on stage. Hearing this music is a great experience but seeing it performed is what makes this an exceptional experience. There is not a weak moment captured here.

In a day and age where computer generated music is becoming the norm, it is special to witness an artist put together a classic live performance like this. Sting broke new ground with this music. It has been a joy to watch his music evolve from this recording in 1986, through today. He is a complete musician with exceptional talents. This DVD/CD captures a true master at work with some of the best talent in the business - and it smokes. I will enjoy "Bring on the Night" for many years to come - I hope you will also. Peace!!!!!

I have loved this recording ever since it came out as an import in 1986, and it was a great soundtrack to that summer. What you get in the remastered version is a louder mix, and a better booklet with more details. The BIGGEST difference is that 'I burn for you' no longer has a quiet slow fade in and I feel the recording as a whole is longer by 2-3 minutes especially noticeable at the beginning and end of each song. Still a great listen after all these years.

I bought this when it originally came out back in the mid 80s... and it was on cassette... I wore it out, and since it costed so much, and I was a college student.. I didn't rebuy it...

I just recently purchased it... and this CD still has all its magic. Omar Hakim on drums Branford Marsalis on horns... it is totally a jazz rock fusion gem. There are some jazz folks out there that will totally thumb their nose at Sting, but they are snobs, and they should be ignored...

I love all the songs but my favorite is ONE WORLD/LOVE IS THE SECOND WAVE combo at the beginning of side two. This is really a treat, and it could have went on for another 10 minutes as far as I am concerned.

The songs are tight, the band is great and the music swings. There is nothing to dislike on this CD and there are no weak songs. All that in a two cd set.

If you like DREAM OF THE BLUE TURTLES and would like to know what that would have sounded like live, then get this CD. It is very impressive.

Have fun

First, the sound quality: Bob Ludwig is one of the best mastering engineers in the business, but there is only so much he can do with a poor master. This album suffers from poor recording, poor mixing, and possibly poor recording technology. It has all the earmarks of early digital -- especially the tizzy and brittle high frequencies. Ludwig seems to have filtered these out somewhat, bringing the midrange to the fore. That makes Sting's voice more natural. Generally, the sax and keyboards do not have the definition and impact they should. The drums come through with a fair amount of impact, though the timbre of the drums is not at all natural. You can hear the bang and the "thwack" but not so much the skin and the distinctive metallic shimmer of the cymbals, which sound more like white noise. In other words, the remaster tries to minimize some of the deficiencies of the original recording, but it cannot remake the record. The microphones were perhaps poorly placed or poorly equalized, and the instruments arise out of a kind of indistinct general foggy cloud. The piano and sax were mixed a little too low at times -- lacking body and not cutting through in the mix during solos -- especially the keyboards.

OK, the sound is what it is. We can't change it. But your enjoyment will not suffer much if you buy the old out-of-print first CD release. Yes, the remaster is better. Not massively better.

These concerts were recorded in France and Italy in 1985. Sting chose a band of some of the finest jazz players for his bass, keyboard, drum and sax backing band. Sting plays electric guitar on this tour. After all the critical things I said about the sound, the band itself is great. The songs are recognizable tunes from Sting's Police and early solo days. But here they are re-imagined, re-arranged, and in many cases amped up in energy. The drumming in particular has both the slam and slap of rock but also the intricacy and subtlety and syncopation of jazz. The late Kenny Kirkland's piano/keyboard solos are energetic and rhythmic and complex. Branford Marsalis adds a harmonious saxophone counterpoint to Sting's voice.

This may be the best band Sting has ever played with. There is much to recommend this set. It has a great deal of energy and infectious musical grooves. The arrangements are, as I said, different and imaginative -- though more jazzy/bluesy at times. Highly recommended on this basis.

If you want to hear the subtleties, you'll have to listen hard through the muddle of a mediocre recording. I've heard bootlegs that sound better than this. Still, it's very enjoyable, it's a great concert, and worth hearing if you like Sting/Police much at all.

Compared to the original CD issue, the remaster shows a noticeable improvement in audio quality (surprisingly, that's not always the case with remasters). The bass, in particular, is much improved. The high frequencies, particularly cymbals, are also much cleaner in the remaster.

The remaster does engage in one "trick" - it's considerably louder than the original. But after correcting for the difference in levels, the audio quality is still clearly improved. I did my comparison using a Mark Levinson 390S CD player, BAT VK-300SE integrated amp, and Quad 988 speakers.

The success of Sting's first solo tour inspired him to turn it into a now-classic documentary, as well as an outstanding live album, both titled BRING ON THE NIGHT. The album finds Sting and his Blue Turtles Band at their most jazzy, melding Sting's then-few solo compositions with jazzed-up remakes of Police tunes. Though Sting is great, it's the Blue Turtles Band that steals the show, particularly Branford Marsalis, whose saxophone has a voice all of its own. The songs are delightful, particularly "We Work The Black Seam", "The Dream Of The Blue Turtles/Demolition Man", "I Burn For You", "Another Day", and the cover of "I've Been Down So Long". Some of the live songs are actually superior to their studio originals, namely "Moon Over Bourbon Street". BRING ON THE NIGHT is not just an extraodinary live album - it's one of the best ever recorded.

I love everything Sting does and this is no exception. Gorgeous live sound and word pictures. Perfect with a glass of wine in the evening while making dinner.

It's a big job being Gordon Sumner. I'm not sure I have the hat size for it, but coming off a meteoric rise to fame with the Police, Sting had something to prove and was determined to show he was the creative genius in that band. Outdoing Stewart Copeland's move into avant-rock and world music, Der Stingle opted for a jazz-rck approach and put together a group of young lions who wanted to free themselves from the straight jacket of Wynton Marsalis.
So, with Branford Marsalis and Kenny Kirkland holding down the band, this tour rightly became the stuff of legend. The Police in concert were amphetamine fueled thrash ska that bore precious little resemblance to the studio band. Cleansing himself, Sting got back in the groove, re-discovered what an amazing bassist he was in his own write and worked his band through an incredible set list. I dare say that after the Soul Cages or the Dreaming Sea, Sting was never quite this good. Certainly after the death of his parents, his CDs were a mish-mosh of genius, and ideas that went terribly wrong in mid-air. He had more focus earlier on. His head hadn't outgrown his eyes.
In any case, both Marsalis and the late Kirkland are so incredible throughout this disc, it almost passes for one of their own CDs with Sting as vocalist. I'd highly recommend this disc for two very sound musical reasons:
1. It's just incredibly hot and passionate musicking
2. It will p*ss off Wynton to the point where he can't see straight.

After developing thru the Police in a most remarkable way Stin went solo at tht time and I was quite curious which path he would go. Being a jazzrock, miles davis fan myself I was pleasantly surprised that stin came up with such an excellent line up
beautifully merged with his song writing. I can also recommend the corresponding DVD as to how the music came to be and was rehearsed somewhere in an old French castle.
Unfortunatley enough Sting has never met this quality ever since despite the enormous commercial success he gained with other projects. This band is so full of energy and tickles the right mixture between being melodic and jazzy feel.
I would also highly recommend the 2005 line up with two guitars only, no keyboards , which brings the old police intensity back again. I truly hope that Sting will be able to perform again with the similar line up as bring on the night .
A job well done