About three-quarters of the way into the Police concert at Madison Square Garden last night, I was thrilled to see that Sting’s management had finally received the countless text messages, voice mails and e-mails I had been sending since last Friday. You see, it was a week ago that VH1 Classic had broadcast the Hard Rock Calling festival – featuring a heavily bearded Police frontman.

I begged and pleaded with the management office to alert Sting to my dilemma. I had tickets to see the Police’s final show (ever) in a week, but I couldn’t bear to see the erstwhile Gordon Sumner perform his greatest hits while looking like Grizzly Adams. Could they please entice him to lose the hirsute look for the upcoming August 7th concert? To my grave disappointment, despite opening the show with a thunderous version of “Sunshine of Your Love” and following it up with an NYPD band-backed version of “Message in a Bottle,” Sting was still sporting the beard.

I did my best to at least try to enjoy myself, even when Sting and Andy Summers’ kids joined the band onstage for “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” heavily borrowing choreography from their dads’ corresponding 1981 video. I must say, the members of the Police Generation 2.0 were so adorable, and Sting, Summers and Stewart Copeland were as musically tight as ever, but still, the beard! Would it ever go away?

Then, finally, after dancing my behind off to “I Can’t Stand Losing You,” the band took a break before its first encore. I looked up at the video screen and saw a shirtless Sting sitting back in a barber’s chair. To my amazement and sheer joy, two beautiful blond women (neither of whom appeared to be Trudie Styler) began to shave off the hairy mass on Sting’s face that had been distracting me throughout the entire show! Apparently I wasn’t the only one who had wanted the bassist to lose the facial hair – Copeland was so ecstatic that he kissed his bandmate as soon as the last piece of stubble had been removed.

When Sting rejoined Summers and Copeland onstage a few minutes later for a cover of “Purple Haze” (yet another welcome surprise) the crowd erupted with cheers. Sure, it was cool to hear the Police cover Jimi Hendrix, but I think I speak for the entire audience when I say we were all relieved to have a clean-shaven Sting back. The subsequent (albeit kick-ass) performances of “Roxanne,” “King of Pain,” “So Lonely” and “Next to You” were just icing on the cake.