Sting debuts in beach concert at Figueira da Foz

O concerta da Praia do Clock, beginning at 21:00, a few minutes after sunset, is sold out for several months, being expected, according to the organization, the presence of 25,000 people, in the one that is considered the largest urban sand in Europe.

Sting's rare concerts on beaches throughout his career took place in 2024: in May, at the BeachLife Festival on Redondo Beach, California, west coast of the U.S., opposite the Pacific Ocean, and in July of the same year at the Nieuwpoort Beach Festival, Belgium, along the North Sea.

Before, in August 2006, there are records of another concert on the beach, a private show, in the garden of a villa, but it ended up open to hundreds of people who watched on the sand and on boats in Narragansett, Rhode Island, on the East Coast. 

The exclusive show in Portugal of the tour “Sting 3.0” — in which the British singer and bassist appears on stage accompanied only by two other musicians (Argentinian guitarist Dominic Miller, his longtime collaborator, and Luxembourg drummer Chris Maas, who participated in live shows with the Munford & Sons) — has an estimated duration of one hour and 45 minutes and an alignment of about 20 songs, between The Police’s ‘hits’ and relevant themes of 41 years of solo career.

“Message in a Bottle”, a 1979 song by The Police, should open the alignment — a constant on this and other Sting tours — that will include themes such as “Englishman in New York”, “Can’t Stop Loving You”, “Walking On The Moon”, “So Lonely” or “Every Breath You Take”, among several other hits by the 74-year-old musician and composer, closing with “Fragile”, from their second solo original album “Nothing Like The Sun” (1987).

In statements to Lusa, Tiago Castelo Branco, director-general of MOT — Memories of Tomorrow, co-promotor and co-producer of the concert with Live Nation, said that most of the 25,000 viewers who have exhausted the Clock beach grounds are over 45 years old.

Due to Sting's concert, but also that of Lewis Capaldi, on Saturday, the organization, together with the municipality of Figueira da Foz and PSP, designed a mobility plan for the urban area, which includes the closure to the transit of the avenues of Spain, in the coastal area of the district of Coimbra and 25 April, border to the beach.

The plan also includes the identification of alternative accesses and the dissemination of more than 20 parks and parking areas (with caravan seats and reduced mobility) throughout the city and village of Buarcos, but also in the Cabedelo area, on the south bank of Mondego, with access to the urban core through the electric boat that makes the crossing between the two banks of the river.

The doors of the enclosure located next to the north port jetty open at 18:00, with the performance of the band Dea Matrona, Irish alternative rock duo – whose name derives from Celtic mythology and means “Goddess Divine Mother” – founded in 2018 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by the young Orláith Forsythe and Mollie McGinn.

In the context of the tour “Sting 3.0”, Amnesty International, at the invitation of the musician, has collected signatures for the campaign “Proteges Freedom”, which will also happen at Figueira da Foz.

Amnesty International, on its website, recalls previous collaborations with Sting, such as campaigns against the arrest of the Pussy Riot in Russia, and forced disappearances in Mexico, as well as the tours “A Conspiracy of Hope”, in 1986, in the 25 years of the organization, and “Human Rights Now!” in 1988, in the 40 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which also featured Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman and Yousssou N’Dour.