{"id":17424,"date":"2026-05-14T21:03:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/?p=17424"},"modified":"2026-05-14T21:03:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:03:43","slug":"sting-cynthia-woods-mitchell-pavilion-the-woodlands-tx-may-13-2026-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/2026\/05\/14\/sting-cynthia-woods-mitchell-pavilion-the-woodlands-tx-may-13-2026-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Sting – Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion – The Woodlands, TX. – May 13, 2026 – Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Dave Clements<\/p>\n

Sting 3.0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I woke up the morning of the show with my brain firing off questions about the Sting 3.0 Tour I\u2019d be photographing & reviewing later that night.
\nWhere were the other two members of The Police? Who exactly was sharing the stage with Sting? Why \u201c3.0\u201d? Why no opener? And could the man still sing? Does he play an instrument or just sing? Where does he live?By the time I got to The Woodlands Pavilion, I had answers to none of it \u2014 and I also had 20 extra minutes to kill, because the show didn\u2019t start until 8:20 instead of the printed 8:00. Not a crime, but it does train audiences to stroll in whenever they feel like it.<\/p>\n

Skipping an opener and not selling lawn seats is rare for an artist of Sting\u2019s stature. But this wasn\u2019t a typical tour stop. This was Sting stripping everything down to the essentials.<\/p>\n

Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner \u2014 Sting \u2014 walked out with a bass guitar and launched straight into \u201cMessage in a Bottle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>His entire band:
\n\u2022 Dominic Miller \u2014 Sting\u2019s longtime guitarist and musical shadow
\n\u2022 Chris Maas \u2014 drummer with credits including Mumford & Sons and Maggie Rogers
\nThat\u2019s it. No Copeland. No Summers.<\/p>\n

Andy Summers, now 83, is in Santa Monica making music and photos. Stewart Copeland is touring a spoken word show. And both are suing Sting in the U.K. for more than eight million pounds in alleged unpaid streaming royalties. Rock history is messy.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get this out of the way: Sting can still sing.
\nAt 73, his voice is shockingly intact \u2014 warm, sharp, unmistakable. The man hasn\u2019t lost a step.<\/p>\n

The \u201c3.0\u201d branding makes sense once you see it. Three musicians. No filler. No distractions. A tight, intimate setup that forces you to listen. And the sold out crowd did exactly that\u2026 well, except for the handful of talkers around us who apparently bought tickets to socialize instead of hear a legend.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Police era songs hit hardest:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Shape of My Heart
\n\u2022 Walking on the Moon
\n\u2022 Fields of Gold
\n\u2022 Wrapped Around Your Finger
\n\u2022 King of Pain
\n\u2022 Every Breath You Take
\n\u2022 Roxanne<\/p>\n

\u201cMessage in a Bottle\u201d would be on my list too, but I was busy shooting photos \u2014 occupational hazard.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before \u201cFields of Gold,\u201d Sting casually mentioned he wrote it while looking out from his \u201cmodest home\u201d \u2014 a castle \u2014 near Stonehenge.
\nHe even invited a woman near the front row to stop by for tea next time she\u2019s in the neighborhood. His abode is just down the hill.
\nGiven his net worth, he could fly her and 100 of her closest friends there without noticing the expense.<\/p>\n

I woke up the next morning realizing I\u2019d gotten answers to every question that had been bouncing around my head.<\/p>\n

Sting, Dominic Miller, and Chris Maas delivered a tight, elegant, beautifully strippeddown show.
\nA trio with the power of a full band \u2014 and a frontman whose voice remains one of the most distinctive in music.<\/p>\n

Help keep live music alive. Houston has plenty of venues. Go fill them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Dave Clements Sting 3.0 I woke up the morning of the show with my brain firing off questions about the Sting 3.0 Tour I\u2019d be photographing & reviewing later that night. Where were the other two members of The Police? Who exactly was sharing the stage with Sting? Why \u201c3.0\u201d? Why no opener?… <\/p>\n

Read More<\/i><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-concert-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17424"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17426,"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17424\/revisions\/17426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}