Review and setlist: Sting plays the Met

Two years and three postponements after he was initially scheduled to perform there, Sting finally arrived at The Met Tuesday for the first of two sold-out shows. (He’ll be back there tonight [Wednesday] then in Atlantic City at the Hard Rock on Friday and Saturday.) Whether it was the pandemic-necessitated time off or just the rare clean-living rock star lifestyle, the 70-year-old took the stage in fine form and finer voice, decked out in black jacket, T-shirt, and leather pants.

Dubbed “My Songs,” after the songwriter’s 2019 cash-grab collection of rerecorded, minimally reconceptualized classics, the current tour is primarily a stroll through Sting’s prodigious back catalog of hits. That notion is more welcome on stage than on record, as Tuesday’s nearly two-hour set was packed with indelible melodies and catchy reggae-lite grooves.

The one digression from the string of hits was a four-song mini-set from The Bridge, Sting’s latest album, released late last year. “You’ve had your hits,” the singer told the crowd with a touch of feigned resentment before sharing the “bad news” that it was time for some new songs. “I’ve suffered for my art. Now it’s your turn.”

Self-deprecation doesn’t sit well on an artist so notorious for self-regard, and the gibes seemed aimed at an audience that hadn’t earned them. While they took their seats for the first time for the new material, they were taking their cue from Sting himself, who perched on a stool for that stretch of the show.

The songs themselves were pleasant adult pop, performed with slick polish: the jaunty whistled refrain of “If It’s Love,” the Spanish-tinged ballad “For Her Love,” the infectious “Rushing Water.” But it was clear that the packed house was there to hear the songs they’d grown up loving. People slowly started returning to their feet for “I Hung My Head” from 1996′s Mercury Falling, better known for Johnny Cash’s late-career cover version; more rose for the silky “Fields of Gold,” but it was the lively “Brand New Day” that got everyone moving again.

The original version of that 1999 single, Sting noted, featured Stevie Wonder on harmonica. Here it was a showcase for harmonica virtuoso Shane Sager, whose youth was the target of some teasing from the bandleader but whose audacious playing made the song one of the show’s most exhilarating moments.

Age was a recurring subject throughout the evening; introducing “I Hung My Head,” Sting took a quick survey of the crowd’s knowledge of vintage Western TV shows, gauging the average age by their familiarity with Wagon Train, Rawhide, or Bonanza (whose familiar theme Sting briefly quoted on his well-worn Fender Precision bass). He explained that he’d had two ambitions in life: to be a musician and to be a cowboy, the latter goal hindered by a lack of “authenticity” for a kid from the north of England.

The subject of authenticity wasn’t broached later in the set when the band ran through a string of reggae-influenced songs from the Police repertoire. A slowed down “Wrapped Around Your Finger” reshaped that 1983 hit with a reggae lope, leading into the dub-inspired “Walking on the Moon.” At the end of “So Lonely,” Sting did acknowledge that tune’s obvious borrowing, turning it into a medley with “No Woman No Cry.”

Starting with “Message in a Bottle,” nearly half of the show’s 21 songs were culled from Sting’s days with the Police. That was followed by the singer’s first solo hit, “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free,” and the graceful “Englishman in New York.” Though it wasn’t quite the end of the show — that came with a “quiet and thoughtful” solo acoustic rendition of the title track from The Bridge — the climax was certainly the one-two punch of “Every Breath You Take” and “Roxanne.” Even given the sometimes over-polished performance and the unfortunate pseudo-jazz pastiche of “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” that interrupted “Roxanne,” those two songs were still thrilling live.

The songs throughout the night were flawlessly executed by a deft band featuring the guitar tandem of longtime sideman Dominic Miller and his son, Rufus. Sting introduced the ensemble as a “family band,” slyly remarking that bespectacled drummer Zach Jones was Police drummer Stewart Copeland’s son. In addition to the Millers, the frontman’s own son Joe Sumner opened the show with a half-hour set of his own songs (he’ll headline his own show at MilkBoy on Monday). The younger Sumner looks and especially sounds uncannily like his father, so when Joe joined the band for a closing romp through the Police’s “Driven to Tears,” the father-son duet looked like something out of the time travel film Looper.