Setlist

01	Message In A Bottle
01	Walking On The Moon
02	Demolition Man
03	Voices Inside My Head
04	When The World Is Running Down
05	Don't Stand So Close To Me
06	Driven To Tears
07	Hole In My Life
08	Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
09	Wrapped Around Your Finger
10	De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da
11	Invisible Sun
12	Can't Stand Losing You
13	Roxanne
14	King Of Pain
15	So Lonely
16	Every Breath You Take
17	Next To You

The Police are a reunion worth waiting for...

Evergreen trio must have been kept in a bottle...

Sting wears a beard that's more salt than pepper, Stewart Copeland sports glasses, gloves and a mop of grey hair and Andy Summers's scissor-kicks off the drum riser are appropriately scaled-back to accommodate a 65-year-old guitar hero.

But otherwise not much has changed in Police land, a fact that delighted the 40,000 people who filled ANZ Stadium last night to witness their second coming.

The Police were always the smartest, tightest band on the post-punk block and nothing has changed.

After Copeland had made his entrance - rising from beneath the stage on a hydraulic platform banging the largest gong in the southern hemisphere - the British trio wasted no time launching into the syncopated reggae-lite brilliance of 'Message in a Bottle'.

The years rolled away as Sting sang "'A year has passed since I wrote my note" and Summers chopped out those glorious minor chords on his red Stratocaster.

Copeland, who plays syncopated beats with a ferocity that is still a marvel to behold, stares at his two bandmates as if he can't quite believe he is sharing a stage with them again.

Message in a Bottle was an instant reminder of how great this band was in the years before Sting started dreaming of blue turtles and hiring jazz musicians by the dozen.

Sting implored the audience to clap - an instruction that even the celebs down the front - such as Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban, Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness - didn't care to ignore.

"The last time we were in Sydney was 1979," Sting told the audience. "I was 10."

Oddly enough, you almost believe him. They came, they saw, they played 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' and Every Breath You Take'.

Oh, happy day.

© Sydney Morning Herald by Richard Jinman (Ticket from Sue Bett)

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