Multi colored party balloons rained down on rock star Sting Saturday night in London’s famed Royal Albert Hall as he celebrated his 59th birthday. It was the second of two sold out shows in two days at the famed music hall.

At first he didn’t look too happy—after all, 59 is a number, and the forever leader of the Police could easily pass for a decade younger. But he took it in stride, with guests in the jam packed audience including wife Trudie Styler, his two sisters, director Terry Gilliam, and British actor/author Stephen Fry all rocking out.

Later, the consummate musician said of being enshrouded in the surprise: “I was trying to sing, after all. I had a song to do!” He protested too much, I think. He didn’t know what was coming, but said his faithful road manager, Billy Francis, “had had a look on his face all day. I knew he was up to something.”

By the end of the song he was playing, “She’s Too Good to Me,” Sting gave in to the mischief as the balloons piled up around him.

I’d caught up with Sting’s classically orchestrated show on Thursday in Paris, where the audience – again, sold out to the rafters in the Bercy theater—stamped their feet like thunder to show their unanimous approval of the two hour set that takes a couple dozen of Sting’s well known songs and reimagines them in pop-classic settings.

In front of a French audience, Sting—who can often seem school teacher serious on stage—connected, and the crowd loved him. He belly danced to “Desert Rose” and two stepped with his band through the just-added “Cowboy Song.” During emotional numbers like “When We Dance” and “Why Should I Cry for You” his passion resonated with the audience.

In London, where performing at the Royal Albert is always a milestone, two sold out nights is quite a feat. Saturday night’s show was extra special. At the start, Sting told the crowd: “It’s my 59th birthday, I’m starting my 60th year.” Many in the audience were young enough to be his children’s ages. Sting is either at the low end age wise of the classic rock star generation, or an elder statesman to the New Wave crowd. It just depends on how you look at it. For a lot of his audience, it’s seeing a rock “artist” at work for the first time after daily exposure to pre-packaged commercialism.

The way Sting looks at it, he’s a kid. “I love this show,” he told me a couple of times over the Paris to London period. “I could do it forever.” And you can see why. This huge catalog of songs is so well constructed that its transformation to the symphonic seems natural. Unlike other rockers who’ve tried to “mellow out” their music as they’ve aged, Sting’s transit in this direction comes off as ebullient and cool.

He not only looks good, but he sounds like a million bucks, too. At the Royal Albert, I had a seat with an unusual angle toward the stage, just above and to the side of the singer’s microphone. Sting is by himself on that spot, sort of home plate, where there’s no cheat sheet for lyrics, no augmentation for his vocals other than his beautiful, soulfully voiced back up singer, Jo Lawry. He’s out there on his own, which is sort of quaint in the era of Auto Tune and computerized gimmicks.

After Saturday’s show, a few friends and family made it through a drenching rain across London to the narrow basement club Bungalow 8. Sting’s two sisters, Angela and Anita, and Trudie’s sister, Heather, were among the guests sprinkled through a room of well wishers. Fry—a large presence in the small room– commandeered the bar area and helped reach drinks over the heads of models and other Bungalow types. A promised “stripper” turned out to be an athletic pole dancer, which was maybe a sign of the times.

Another sign: while Sting may be 59, his 20 year old daughter with Styler, Coco Sumner, has taken London by storm. Following in the footsteps of dad and older brother Joe (whose group Fiction Plane played Paris a couple of nights before Sting), Coco has her first big hit in the charts here with “In Spirit Golden.” On the train from Paris to London, a proud papa played it for me from his IPad, and said: “That’s the best thing I’ve heard in two years.”

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominations are in.

Sir Elton John was totally snubbed in his quest to get Leon Russell into the Rock Hall. After they win some Grammys in February, Elton and Leon should schedule a show in New York the same day as the Rock Hall show. It will sell out in minutes.

A handful of names haven’t been on the list before: Neil Diamond, Bon Jovi, Donovan, Alice Cooper, and Dr. John are all new.

From ballots gone by: Tom Waits, Beastie Boys, Chic, J. Geils Band, Darlene Love, Lauro Nyro, Donna Summer, LL Cool J, Joe Tex and Chuck Willis.

Who really deserves it from these choices: Neil Diamond, Chuck Willis, Darlene Love, Laura Nyro, Joe Tex, Donovan, Alice Cooper. Bon Jovi would make it a great night and a contemporary touch. They’re a great bar band, and survivors.

Not rock, and it’s getting ridiculous already: Donna Summer. LL Cool J, Beastie Boys.

‘Still missing: KISS, Chicago. the Moody Blues, Mary Wells, Billy Preston, etc.

PS As we know, Joel Peresman is paid just under $400,000 a year to organize this list for the Rock Hall Foundation. Also on the group’s 2009 federal tax filing: $25,000 spent on music scholarship, nothing listed for indigent or needy musicians, and between $10 mil-$13 mil in assets. Good job!

Really: dozens and dozens of people huddled under umbrellas on the plaza outside the Metropolitan Opera House last night to watch the Met’s new production of Wagner’s “Das Rheingold” on a large screen. It was raining off and on like crazy but it didn’t matter. Whatever you think of the new productions under Peter Gelb, they’re getting attention.

Inside, there were plenty of stars in the audience. Regis and Joy Philbin, Anjelica Huston accompanied by old friend Earl McGrath, Patricia Clarkson, Kerry Washington, Christine Baranski, Miranda Richardson, Broadway star from London Mark Rylance, and so on. I didn’t see Meg Ryan but apparently she was there; in her pictures, she looks like someone else. So does Holly Hunter. Charlie Rose saw the opera but skipped the lavish dinner in the massive tent set up next door. Patti Smith–yes, the Patti Smith–one of our heroes–loves opera. She was there.

Oscar nominee Vera Farmiga–so good in “Up in the Air” and “The Departed”–is eight months pregnant but that didn’t stop her. She and her husband, producer Ren Hawkey, are expecting their second child. They’ve also just finished making a movie that Vera directed called “Higher Ground.” It stars Bill Irwin, Donna Murphy and John Hawkes, and should be ready, I guess, for spring film festivals.

This is what happens at the Met dinner: the stars of the opera do finally walk in, and receive thunderous applause from the black-tie dressed diners. Then, as they make their way through the room, the singers pass the movie stars. And then all hell breaks loose. The opera stars don’t get much chance to meet the movie stars.

Patty Clarkson and Kerry Washington each said, simultaneously: “I wonder if Bryn Terfel is married.” He plays the lead, Wotan. Stephanie Blythe, who plays Fricka, immediately invited Patty and Kerry to her one woman show at Carengie Hall next month.

PS Both Clarkson and Washington may be in the Oscar race this winter. Clarkson is a hot topic in “Cairo Time” for Best Actress–best reviews of any lead actress this year so far. And Washington is co-starring in “For Colored Girls.”