Saturday, July 15, 2023

Concert for Human Rights Now, Estadio River Plate, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 10-15-1988, Part 4 - Sting

This album continues right where the previous one left off. That's because these are different sets from a benefit concert that was five and a half hours long. The first sets featured Youssou N'Dour, Tracy Chapman and Peter Gabriel. This set is by Sting. The remaining set features Bruce Springsteen.

I explained the basics about this concert in Part 1, the Youssou N'Dour set. Read that if you want to know more, including a Wikipedia link about the tour. But the gist is that these artists got together for a short world tour to promote the work of the non-profit Amnesty International and its campaigns against human rights abuses.

Sting was a good fit for this concert, due to a couple of songs on his most recent album at the time, "...Nothing like the Sun." One was "They Dance Alone," which was about the disappearance of thousands of political activists in Chile in the 1970s and 80s. Another, "Fragile," is about Ben Linder, a U.S. engineer who was working on a microhydro dam in Nicaragua in 1987 when he was killed by the Contras, a rebel group secretly funded by the U.S. government. 

Additionally, early in 1988, Sting released an EP called "Nada Como el Sol," which contained Spanish versions of four songs from his "...Nothing like the Sun." That included the two political songs mentioned above. So perhaps it's not surprising that he performed the Spanish versions of those two songs instead of the English versions, since this concert took place in Argentina, where the dominant language is Spanish. I don't know if he speaks Spanish or had to be coached, but he also ably made some comments in Spanish between songs.

One interesting thing about this concert is that there doesn't seem to have been an emcee. Instead, each artist was introduced by the previous one. So the first track here is the introduction by Peter Gabriel. Gabriel also helped sing the song "Ellas Danzan Solas" (the Spanish version of "They Dance Alone"). Also, Bruce Springsteen helped sing the final song, the huge Police hit "Every Breath You Take."

As I mentioned in my Part 1 write-up, there has been an official album of this concert, but it's only a double album, so it merely contains highlights from the full show, which is over five and a half hours long. Luckily, a soundboard bootleg of the entire thing exists, and the sound quality here is excellent.

This album is an hour and 19 minutes long. Since I consider it a part of the entire concert, I've had the track number start with 34, so you can put all the parts together in one folder and have them be in the proper order.

Note that on the mp3, I had to shorten the title for the medley "Bring on the Night - When the World Is Running Down You Make the Best of What's Still Around" because it's so damn long.

34 talk by Peter Gabriel (Sting)
35 The Lazarus Heart - Too Much Information (Sting)
36 We'll Be Together (Sting)
37 If You Love Somebody Set Them Free (Sting)
38 One World [Not Three] (Sting)
39 talk (Sting)
40 Fragilidad [Spanish Version of Fragile] (Sting)
41 Driven to Tears (Sting)
42 Bring on the Night - When the World Is Running Down You Make the Best of What's Still Around (Sting)
43 Don't Stand So Close to Me (Sting)
44 Ellas Danzan Solas [Spanish Version of They Dance Alone] (Sting with Peter Gabriel)
45 Every Breath You Take (Sting with Bruce Springsteen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15451357/ConcrtfrHumnRightsNw__10-15-1988__Part4-_Stng.zip.html

The cover is from this exact concert. It's a screenshot I took from a YouTube video. The graphic in the upper left corner was the logo for this tour. I also used the same font that was featured on the promotional material for the tour.

1 comment:

  1. Must say - a great find....great site and great quality of recordings. many thanks.....this will give me many hours of listening.....

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