Music legend Sting has taken a trip on the Tyne and Wear Metro to receive his Freedom of North Tyneside award.
The Wallsend born musician, whose real name is Gordon Sumner, swapped walking on the moon for a Metro round the Toon as he travelled from Monument to North Shields.
Sting let the train take the strain as he headed to the Exchange 1856 building in North Shields, where he collected his Freedom of the Borough award.
And he posted photos of his Metro journey to his official Facebook and Instagram pages.
A post on Facebook even detailed a slight hiccup where Sting and his guests initially found themselves on the wrong train – but in the end they made it to the venue on time.
Having travelled by Metro to be there, he told a packed auditorium that he was very proud, that he owed North Tyneside a great deal, and that it brought him ‘full circle’ back to the place where he once dreamt of a life in music.
We were absolutely delighted to see that Sting chose Metro as the best way of getting there.
Customer Services Director at Nexus, Huw Lewis, said: “It was fantastic to see that Sting chose Metro on his most recent visit back to his native North East England.
“He was here to collect the Freedom of the Borough of the North Tyneside, so hopped on the Metro in Newcastle city centre for the short journey up to North Shields.
“He may even have noticed he features in the Famous Faces artwork at Monument Metro station alongside other iconic figures from the region.”
Sting rose to prominence as the frontman for the band The Police before forging a successful solo career. Sting has sold over 100 million albums from his combined work with The Police and as a solo artist.
He has won countless awards globally including 17 Grammys and four BRIT Awards. Earlier this year, Sting became a Fellow of the Ivors Academy – the highest honour reserved for those who have reshaped and redefined the art and craft of music creation, while his hit song, “Every Breath You Take” was added to Spotify’s ‘Billions Club,’ having amassed over 1 billion streams on the platform with the correlating music video surpassing 1 billion streams on YouTube.
Photo credit: Tyne and Wear Metro
