In Montreux, Sting Does the Job - The English singer performed Friday in a packed Stravinsky Auditorium. A pleasant and very professional concert, but sometimes devoid of emotion...

What can one say about a Sting concert that saw 67-year-old Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner belt out twenty-two songs to a packed Stravinsky Auditorium, including twelve Police classics and some of his greatest hits (If I Ever Lose My Faith in You, Englishman in New York, If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, Brand New Day, Fragile)? That the Englishman did the job? Certainly, the singer and bassist gave his audience what they came for. A show that leaves no room for surprises — the same setlist night after night, with solos (guitar, harmonica) skilfully placed here and there to extend (sometimes a little too much) certain songs — but perfectly celebrates his legend. Sting is one of those artists who doesn't need to hide behind a multimedia stage device; his music speaks for itself.

Friday night in Montreux, he opened Message in a Bottle, before moving on to If I Ever Lose My Faith in You and Englishman in New York. He is surrounded by five sharp musicians and two charismatic backing singers for a concert opening that immediately puts the Strav' in orbit. Like his last album, My Songs, he revisits his repertoire in sometimes slightly rearranged versions. We expected a very rock, dry sound, but Sting is ultimately keen to prove that if The Police's first album was released in 1978, a year after the Sex Pistols' founding album Never Mind the Bollocks, his influences are indeed to be found in world music, jazz and blues.

Tight dark blue T-shirt, slight beard, Sting is absolute class. He seems happy to be back in Montreux, thinks this might be his fifth concert here – but in fact no, he forgets two anyway – and skilfully moves from gently swaying pieces to more muscular tracks – beautiful versions of Walking on the Moon and So Lonely, while a mid-tempo Roxanne ultimately fails to provoke the expected shivers. It is in this absence of shivers that his concert will prove partly disappointing. The Brit did the job, certainly, but the way he unfolds his songs like a seasoned pro prevents us from being moved by real emotions. We would have preferred him to take risks sometimes rather than simply regularly launching "ooooh oh" chorused by the audience.

(c) Le Temps by Stéphane Gobbo