Sting at Lollapalooza MY SEVEN-CONCERT, 25-YEAR JOURNEY WITH THE LEGEND

I’ve seen him from before I was old enough to vote, I’ve seen him take over stadiums, I’ve seen him make guest appearances, I’ve seen him recite verses. I’ve seen him slap a bass guitar like only he can

- Raja Sen

It's not easy to steal a giant poster from a rock concert.

The year was 2005, and, electrified by a Sting gig in Delhi, I had decided to snaffle a souvenir. It took three of us to carry one of the huge event signs to a friend's car, where I was informed that it couldn't fit inside or be tied to the roof. The wooden frame, I was told, was the problem. I asked for the car keys. A puzzled friend handed them over, at which point I lay the poster down - a massive black-and-white Sting staring up at me in the moonlight and used a key as a knife to cut it out of the frame. It was all very The Thomas Crown Affair, if I say so myself - an art-theft film whose 1999 remake featured a gorgeous Sting cover of Windmills Of Your Mind. This was no mere whim, I realised when rolling up the poster and laying it carefully across three laps in the backseat. It was a heist.

Sting was always worth the steal.

30 years ago, a friend was moving from the neighbourhood and giving away his audiocassettes. The Michael Jackson tapes were naturally the first to go. By the time I arrived, what remained was rock we had never heard of, and so we scavenged based on album art - judging musicians by their covers following flying pigs to Pink Floyd, bananas to The Velvet Underground. One tape simply featured three boys in black and white, wearing denim and mirrored sunglasses, not smiling but ridiculously magnetic. 'The Police: Greatest Hits' called out to me.