An old-school Sting energizes Agganis

Give Sting credit for upending the assumption that he always has to play huge arenas. In a smart move, he's been on a stripped-down tour of college campuses. It's fun to imagine the aristocratic Sting at such humble places as the University of Montana and Cleveland State, but the tour evidently agrees with him, judging from his rejuvenating show at Boston University's Agganis Arena on Thursday.

It was a crowd-pleaser for the students, but also for the many older Sting fans who got to hear him do 20 songs -- 12 of them from his heyday with the Police.

Sting had a great band with him Thursday -- a lean, mean rockin' machine featuring guitarists Dominic Miller (who's been with him for years) and Shane Fontayne (Springsteen fans will remember him touring with the Boss in the '90s), and workhorse drummer Josh Freese, who is normally with A Perfect Circle.

Sting slipped out of the darkness to start with four straight Police tunes: ''Message in a Bottle," ''Demolition Man," ''Spirits in the Material World" (he joked that it was a song that Madonna ripped off), and ''Synchronicity II."

The tone was set for a high-energy, back-to-basics show, but he also dug out lesser-played songs such as ''Driven to Tears," which drew gasps from the faithful.

The stage production was not as enormous as usual, but it still had a sizable lighting grid and LED lights that blinked red during the boudoir tune ''Roxanne." Another highlight was Sting's thoughtful version of the Beatles' ''A Day in the Life," where he praised the Beatles for showing his generation that ''we could also write songs and conquer the world."

Sting conquered the Agganis this time -- and it was also a pleasure to hear his son's band, Fiction Plane. Fronted by Joe Sumner (his dad's real name is Gordon Sumner), Fiction Plane had a buoyant, U2-ish sound that merits attention regardless of his family connections. Fiction Plane also performs at the Paradise Lounge on Monday night.