Next to The Beatles, the Police had one of the biggest band breakups in rock history.
Indeed, singer-bassist Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland were on top of the music world — after their smash “Synchronicity” album and tour — when they split up in 1986.
Of course, Sting went on to have a successful solo career, although he did eventually get back together with the Police for a blockbuster reunion tour in 2007.
And now, at 73, the artist born Gordon Sumner is going back to where he started in another trio. He’s leading a threesome rounded out by guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Mass on the Sting 3.0 Tour that hit the Brooklyn Paramount this week.
It all felt familiar for Sting to be back in a trio, with whom he also released the jagged, bluesy rocker “I Wrote Your Name (Upon My Heart)” last month. They played the new single on Wednesday night — and it was probably the only time most of the crowd didn’t know one of the songs.
The rest of the night was a nonstop nostalgia trip from the late ‘70s beginnings of the Police to Sting’s golden solo years in the mid/late ‘80s and ’90s. From “Message in a Bottle” to “Fragile,” it was a fan-friendly journey through Sting’s classic catalog, one that has endured for decades now.
The show was pretty evenly split between Sting solo songs and Police tunes, which, although he never stopped playing them, he seemed to embrace more again with his new power trio.
There was the sophisti-pop charm of “Everything Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” still captivating after all this time. There was the driving reggae-rock of “Driven to Tears,” shifting gears and tempos. There was the funky-strutting groove of “Walking on the Moon.”
And there was the punk-spiked spirit of “Can’t Stand Losing You” and “So Lonely” — both from the Police’s 1978 debut album “Outlandos d’Amour.”
Sting seemed reenergized to perform these songs that he’s done to death with this new incarnation. He found new ways to play with them and bring them to life again.
In fact, when he repeated “I’ll always be king of pain” at the end of the “Synchronicity” hit “King of Pain,” it was as if that moniker no longer applied to him. His sense of joy throughout the night was palpable — even on the sad songs.
He even seemed to embrace the fact that “Every Breath You Take,” despite its original creepy moodiness, has become a sunny singalong.
Sting — who will be back at Brooklyn Paramount on Thursday night before two shows at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY on Saturday and Sunday — was as spry and wiry as ever in his 70s. (All that tantric sex really kept him in shape.)
And he was in strong voice throughout, whether on the glistening “Fields of Gold” or the tender “Shape of My Heart,” which was co-written by longtime sideman Miller.
After a “Roxanne” encore that turned into a jazzy mash-up with the “…Nothing Like the Sun” solo hit “Be My Beating Heart,” Sting sent us home with “something quiet and thoughtful” in “Fragile.” And the song’s gentle, feathery beauty was as heartbreaking as ever.
