SimplyAbuDhabi X

7 0 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I The Police had a whirlwind run in which they released five albums and racked up six Grammy Awards. It all ended in 1983 when, after playing New York's Shea Stadium, Sting decided that was the band’s zenith, they could go no higher, and so broke up the band. The band has only reformed once, in 2007, for a one-year tour that goes down in the books as the third highest- grossing tour of all time, earning US$350 million. Tonight Sting resurrects the Police songs ‘Demolition Man’, ‘Driven to Tears’, ‘Message in a Bottle’, ‘Wrapped Around My Finger’ and the irreverent glee of ‘De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da’ before closing the set with the incomparable ‘Roxanne’ – an extended 8-minute long version replete with jazz solos. The crowd make a huge appreciative noise that fills the arena, but there’s still more yet, three more encores in fact. With the first return to the stage we are treated to the poignant ‘King of Pain’ and the often misunderstood ‘Every Breath You Take’. People understandably mistake this for a love song but Sting actually wrote it as a warning to an ex-partner. The second encore yields the anthemic ‘Walking on the Moon’ and the lesser known ‘Next to You’. Sting closes a triumphant night with a surprisingly delicate choice, the solemn ‘Fragile’, which was written in 1987 and still sounds as touching now as it ever did.