There's something really quite special about seeing a superstar artist performing in a small, intimate theatre when the normal default position is for the biggest names to play concerts in huge, soulless arenas. Such was the privilege afforded to the lucky few thousand packed into the Manchester Apollo recently when Sting brought his 57th & 9th World Tour to town. And there is little doubting that, with his near forty year career and his illustrious back catalogue, The Police former frontman would still have no difficulty in selling out much larger venues.

 

Whether it is due to his devotion to yoga or his much mocked admittance to bouts of tantric sex, something is certainly keeping the now sixty-five year old Sting looking in remarkably fine fettle with really just a receding hairline being the only tell-tale sign of his advancing years. Dress wise, he is still sporting the same attire of skinny jeans and tight fitting tee shirt that was his regular look back in the late 70s when The Police first burst on the scene and it's a look he can still carry off with ease.

Sting actually opened up his own concert, nonchalantly strolling onto the stage with just an acoustic guitar and he proceeded to sit on a stool centre stage to sing Heading South On The Great North Road, a gentle ballad from his latest album. He then introduced and handed over to his son Joe Sumner(nepotism is alive and kicking) who performed three number under his own steam and who definitely has more than a little bit of 'his old man' about him in the vocal department. A second support act followed in the guise of a young San Antonio Tex-Mex outfit called The Last Bandoleros who rocked things up with their short set.

A fifteen minute interval then ensued before Sting returned for the main event with his three man band(father and son Dominic & Rufus Miller on guitars and Josh Freese on drums with Sting himself, of course, on bass guitar) and also with his son Joe and the Tex-Mex dudes in tow helping out on backing vocals. Two favourites from The Police days got things off to a rousing start with Synchronicity II with its familiar opening 'Oh oh oh' chant paving the way for 1981's Spirits In The Material World. In all Sting peppered his twenty -two song set with eight Police classics.

Following the gung-ho opening, Sting slowed things down with a fabulous version of 'An Englishman In New York', a song from his 1987 album 'Nothing Like The Sun', one of several choice cuts from his solo years served up on the night with other standouts being the beautiful Fields Of Dreams and the Arabic tinged Desert Rose, all of which reminded you that, when it comes to the art of song writing, there are few more skilled than Sting.

With the tour being in support of a new album it was inevitable that Sting would be out to plug the record as much as possible and so he duly performed seven tracks off 57th & 9th, which is his first straight down the line pop/rock album in well over a decade and the closest he has got to replicating The Police style songs since the group disbanded in 1986, although they did reunite in 2007 for a one-off, eighteen month, world tour. Of the new tunes played, One Fine Day(which he cheekily dedicated to Donald Trump), I Can't Stop Thinking About You and Petrol Head were the most memorable.

As expected though, it was The Police big hitters that drew the wildest response from the audience on the night, songs such as the still fantastic and fresh sounding Message In A Bottle which Sting reminisced about writing in his Bayswater basement flat thirty-eight years ago with just his unimpressed cat for company, So Lonely, from the band's debut album Outlandos d'Amour, Walking On The Moon - the song which arguably best epitomises The Police's inventive sound that fused pop/rock with reggae beats and that genre's vocal styling and, the timeless Roxanne, cleverly interwoven with a segment of Bill Wither's Ain't No Sunshine, wrapping up the official portion of the show.

Encores were of course demanded and Sting returned for three numbers, playing two more gems from The Police days - Next To You and the sublime Every Breath You Take, a song that showcased Sting's enduring vocal qualities to perfection, before ending the concert on a gentle note with an exquisite rendition of Fragile, dedicated to the people of Syria. A moving, if a little sombre conclusion to what was a truly great concert.