North East feels ‘Sting of rejection’, as ex-Police star tour skips home region
Written by Cian Mortimer on 27th September 2024
Sting of The Police performs at the Isle of Wight Festival 2008.
Sting, legendary ex-frontman of The Police, has announced the UK dates of his world tour – but he is not coming to his native North East.
The STING 3.0 tour will hit a variety of towns and cities next summer, including Tetbury, Liverpool, Glasgow, Cannock, and Cardiff, and include headline slots at the Isle of Wight festival in June and the Latitude festival in Suffolk the following month.
However, many fans of the Wallsend-born singer may wonder why he has skipped his home region.
After growing up on Tyneside, Sting moved to London, where he formed the Police and found worldwide chart-topping success with hits such as Every Breath You Take.
As he has transitioned into solo work, Sting has managed to establish himself as a household name in his own right.
But his relationship with his home region has always seemed conflicted.
The Police in 1980, with singer and bass player Sting (centre).
In 2003, Sting told CBS that he had felt out of place where he grew up, saying: “I was one of those kids who thought ‘I actually don’t belong here – either in this family or in this street or in this town’.
“I thought I was an orphan that had been, you know, sort of misplaced.
“I just felt this wasn’t for me and I was plotting to escape from a very early age.”
Relations seemed to have improved in the years since, and Sting was even pictured riding on the Metro in Newcastle last year, as he returned to pick up the freedom of North Tyneside.
He also spoke of his “fierce regional pride” for the area, which he says laid the foundations for all of his creative success: “I’ve won a lot of accolades and blandishments of success in the world, but all of those are just manifestations of things that were dreamt up here, when I was wandering the streets or wandering the beaches thinking ‘What am I going to do with my life?’.”
