Gig review: Sting, Glasgow SECC

“I WAS born and raised on Tyneside,” Sting warmly informed us. “It’s a little bit like Govan.” It’s not as if his fans were unaware of either of those facts, but bringing them up earned him a warm round of applause.

This show was the very definition of a crowd-pleaser, an exercise in delivering the comfort of familiarity and sticking securely to the script as written. So that the unique selling point of the Back to Bass tour was which instrument the former Police frontman had chosen to play spoke several volumes.

It would be unfair to criticise on the basis of expected predictability, but what’s worth taking issue with is the level of tolerance which appears to exist for Sting’s tapioca-bland solo material. As someone who created his fair share of justifiable pop classics with the Police, he rationed his prime material in a positively frugal manner here. A promising opening salvo which included All This Time, Demolition Man and the ever-amiable Every Little Thing She Does is Magic was soon waylaid by the likes of the flaccid Fields of Gold, the tame slap-bass funk of Heavy Cloud No Rain and Love is Stronger Than Justice (The Munificent Seven)’s generic hoedown, as well as the admittedly still-trim 60-year-old’s nudge-nudge admission before Sacred Love that sex and religion are the only things which fascinate him.

All of which wouldn’t have mattered had he and his band (with at times two violinists lending a rootsy edge) not pulled a trio of excellent encores out of the bag, forcing everyone to the feet for Desert Rose and Every Breath You Take, wrong-footing us with the punk-sharp Next to You and ending on a lone, acoustic Message in a Bottle. As a big-budget call for a Police reunion, it was a resounding success.

Rating: ***