przed

Sting was born a couple of years after me, about three streets away from my grandmother's house where I lived till I was three. Like me, he trained as a teacher. I never met him but might have seen him when he was first playing and singing (but not at all well known) in our shared birthplace, Newcastle and I was going to clubs there. Reading his biography felt somehow weird. I share your taste for The Who and The Police. For some reason I haven't heard of Yes but then it might be one of the ones that slipped through the gaps when I was busy looking elsewhere.