At 73, the wiry Sting is remarkably ageless in voice and body, and his affecting baritone-to-tenor rage and energetic melodic bass figures had the somewhat-less-gracefully-aged crowd standing and singing along almost the whole time, but true to his early pre-Police years playing jazz, he brought an improvisational flair to nearly every one of his very familiar songs, deftly sprinkling in subtle rhythmic shifts, interpolations, and call-and-response breaks with sharp synchronicity from Dominic Miller and Chris Maas, offering pleasant surprises to even the most devoted fans on classic rock radio staples “Roxanne,” “Message in a Bottle,” “Every Breath You Take,” and more.

Last night at The Beacon Theatre in a co-headlining show with The Psychedelic Furs, East Kilbride, Scotland-originated influential post-punk/noise pop/shoegaze-precursor group The Jesus & Mary Chain returned to NYC for the first time since 2018, intact with shadowy lyrics wrapped in bright melodies sung in offhand baritone by Jim Reid bristled by blistering fuzz riffs from William Reid.

At the recently renovated Warsaw, legendary guitarist Johnny Marr of The Smiths and one-time member of The Pretenders, The The, Modest Mouse, and The Cribs spent over two hours discussing his new Harper Collins photo/memoir book Marr’s Guitars with Variety music editor Jem Aswad in an amazing conversation that brought forth memories of writing some of his greatest songs on some of the 130+ guitars he has amassed over a spectacular and restless musical journey from a scrappy working-class Manchester upbringing to winning an Oscar for his collaboration with Hans Zimmer, Billie Eilish, and Finneas on the theme song for the 2021 James Bond film No Time To Die.

Last night at Madison Square Garden, English ’70s art rock pioneer and world music champion Peter Gabriel brought his i/o tour celebrating his first album of original music since 2002’s Up

I had last seen Pixies in November 2009 during the Doolittle 20th Anniversary week of shows at Hammerstein Ballroom, so it was great to see the current lineup last night at The Rooftop at Pier 17 close out the first of two sold-out NYC co-headlining shows with Modest Mouse with an engaging 25+ song set heavy with tracks from 2022 LP Doggerel and seminal alt-rock classics from their original ’80/‘90s 4AD incarnation.