If a Sting concert is like a masterclass in musical styles (lashings of pop, jazz, rock, intricate polyrhythms and noodlings of the most cerebral kind), then it's also a supremely dull experience. While there's little doubt that at various points in his post-Police career Sting has hit the nail on the head in pop terms (If I Ever Lose My Faith In You, Fields Of Gold), it's equally true that a degree of brazen pomposity pervades. The song titles alone give away the game: Love Is The Seventh Wave, Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot, The Soul Cages. Happy loving couples' pop music has rarely come across so sterile.

The full house responded respectfully to Sting's soul-searching, but perked up considerably whenever he chose to cherry-pick a Police song. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic (and other Police hits peppered throughout the set) came as breathers to the faux-Zen material. They were concise, tuneful and about the closest approximation of pure dynamic there was all night.

It's a truism that expert efficiency and consummate professionalism in specifically pop/ rock/jazz music more often than not leads to a hardening of the arteries that route joy, expressiveness and recognisable spontaneity. It's therefore a pity that this concert was mostly dead from the neck down, but very much alive (and thinking far too much) from the neck up.

Sting plays the Waterfront Hall, Belfast, tonight. To book phone 0870-2434455