Sting at the Cologne Arena: "Hello, sing with me, please!"...

Cologne. The former Police man performed in a purist trio in front of a sold-out crowd. And after a slow start, it finally worked out – luckily!

He was never the type for rock poses. While others smashed their guitars, Sting preferred to read Heisenberg. A working-class kid from Wallsend who sang his way from the shipyard into the world of metaphysics. And when he whistles today - and yes, he does on "If It's Love" - even that sounds like a well-considered thought experiment. "If you like working, you whistle - that's happiness," says Sting. And happiness, for him, always has something to do with insight.

Insight number 1 on this Wednesday evening in Cologne's Lanxess Arena in front of a sold-out crowd: Even a megastar like Sting can start a concert the way people always used to (at least when they were fourteen and playing in front of 20 friends at the youth club next door with their cool new band): No frills here, no dark, looming synth sounds here, no fog. None of that. Just a guitarist, a drummer, and a bassist, the three of them taking the stage and, yes - this might be the only "show bombshell" - launching a number that's unparalleled: "Message in a Bottle." Stripped down to the bare minimum, it couldn't be more purist.

And Sting himself, insight number 2: He seems completely at ease, completely defined in his style (jeans and T-shirt) and body. If the MTV Music Awards had a category for "Most Wiry," Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, aka Sting (he once performed in a yellow and black striped sweater, and a colleague pointed at the sweater and exclaimed, "Gordon has a stinger!"), he would win that trophy. Constantly. Most likely. At least in the over-70s category (he just turned 74).

But precisely because this intellectual metaphysician among pop-rockers comes across as so incredibly self-disciplined, the opening numbers—"I Wrote Your Name (Upon My Heart)" or "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You"—seem so incredibly prudish and so incredibly rehearsed from a tape. A TV camera mounted on a track in the pit, moving back and forth, reinforces the feeling: This is a professional band playing in the style of a TV recording.

And since Sting isn't really known for long orgies of speech that might somehow lighten the mood, the beginning of the show is rather dull in terms of atmosphere. It's only with "Englishman in New York" that the concert tie loosens a little, the reggae offbeat winding around the chair legs of the approximately 16,000 spectators like a slightly tipsy Jamaican boa conch. A few minutes later, before "Fields of Gold," Sting even whispers into the microphone: "This song is about my house. A castle." Finally, he sings "You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky / As we walk in fields of gold." There's no way a pin will drop tonight. But if one had dropped, you would have heard it. Absolutely.

Insight number 3: In general, the god of bass playing is preoccupied with the topic of "home." In a recent interview with a renowned music magazine, he explained that he's always had this feeling: of not really belonging anywhere. It hasn't changed. And he continues: "My home is where I have a book. Where my wife is, where my children are. Where there are paintings. So I have a home, but I feel rootless." The song "Never Coming Home" gets under your skin. Deep. Very deep.

And Sting, who's really starting to get into the groove now, digs further and further into the abyss of his own self. The audience notices. Numerous fans can no longer stay in their seats; they rush forward, demanding a piece of this self. "Hello, sing with me, please!" Sting calls out to them. Finally, they sing together, "I can't, I can't, I can't stand losing / I can't, I can't, I can't stand losing."

What follows is one of the most beautiful songs on the planet: "Shape of My Heart," the beat of "Walking on the Moon," to which it's hard to imagine an astronaut dancing on the moon, and the number to which you've squeezed your last dance reserves out of yourself at every decent 80s party: "So Lonely." But you never felt lonely or even depressed. Not even tonight: "I always play the starring role / so lonely / so lonely (I feel low)."

Insight number 4: Sting, how lucky!

(c) WAZ by Jörg Klemenz