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The most boring love songs, to hear musical icon Sting tell it, are of the "I love you, you love me" variety.
As he told an adoring crowd at Centennial Vineyards Bowral on Sunday night, he should know. At 71, he's had his heart broken a few times and broken his fair share. He has "real estate there" as he put it.
Ironically it was a musing offered before launching into perhaps the breeziest tune of his set, If It's Love from his latest album The Bridge released last year.
Breezier still compared to his most famous hits about sinister obsessive love or doomed affairs with working girls. His love songs are a lot of things, but never boring.
He prefaced the tune with an apology for the new stuff. For an artist with 17 Grammys to his name, the crowd had come for the catalogue.
They got what they wanted straight out of the gate with Message in a Bottle, Englishman in New York and Every Little Thing She Does is Magic opening the show in quick succession.
After a brief detour through his newest work, Book of Numbers and Loving You, the old favourites came thick and fast, strung together by anecdotes offering a window into the process of a truly masterful song writer.
A sip of tea overlooking the barley fields surrounding his home in the north of England 36 years ago becomes Fields of Gold; a gambler's lament plays out through a deck of cards in Shape of My Heart.
The stories are captivating in the hands of a stunning live performer and, as it turns out, an utterly generous one.
Shane Sager takes centre stage for Brand New Day's harmonica riff initially made famous by Stevie Wonder, while backing vocalists Gene Noble and Melissa Musique shine in Shape of my Heart and Whenever I Say Your Name respectively.
Son, and opening act, Joe Sumner joins him for King of Pain after earlier showing a vast vocal range that clearly runs in the family.
"A top G?" subsequent act James Reyne marvelled "what the f--k?"
Among various other hits, the Aussie rock legend's epic mid-set rendition of Reckless earned a standing ovation fit to bookend any gig.
Of course there was no mistaking the star of the show who, even in his seventh decade on earth, possesses more charisma than seems fair for one man to have.
With the My Songs tour bringing him to Australia for the first time in seven years, one can only hope when he closed the show with a promise "we will do this again" that he's telling the truth.
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Mitch Jennings
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
