Police Reunion: 2007/08

PHOTOS

MAY

2007

Vancouver BC, CA

GM Place

Police back on beat after 23 years - Legendary band launches reunion tour before 20,000 screaming fans at GM Place...

With the bang of a gong - which is so very '80s in and of itself - the Police kicked off their 100-plus date reunion tour at GM Place Monday night. Women in their 40s shrieked and screamed as Sting launched into the familiar first notes of Message in a Bottle without a hint of hesitation. Guys in backwards baseball caps punched the air as drummer Stewart Copeland fiercely banged his drums with a joy that appeared to be equal to that of a small boy being allowed to make a roaring racket.

And with that, the Police - who once claimed the title of biggest band in the world-set the tone for what would be two full hours of confident and skilled performing from a band that called it quits 23 years ago. About 20,000 people ranging in age from 10 to 70 filled the stuffy arena for the first look at this year's biggest comeback band. And instead of finding a modern-day reincarnation of the '80s trio, Monday's concert experience - I imagine - was a bit like being picked up and plunked down in the midst of the Police's 1983 'Synchronicity' tour.

Copeland's hair is now peppered with grey, but it was kept out of his eyes with a retro sweatband. He kept his pants, in place with a studded belt and wore what looked like a black and red cycling shirt. His tongue darted out the left side of his mouth and his eyes bulged when he was working his hardest.

Sting looks like he's barely aged two years in the past 20 and proved his voice can still hit those high notes on Roxanne. And guitarist Andy Summers, wearing polished dress shoes and pressed pants, appeared a bit small for the stage, but made up for it with his lengthy and impressive guitar solos.

Mostly though, the band was able to turn back time with their string of No. 1 hits, and the boyish joy showed on each of their faces as they vigorously made their way through the 20-song set. They just seemed so happy to be back - so happy that people still wanted to stay out until 11 p.m. on a Monday night and pay up to $225 a ticket to see them play, that journalists had flown in from across North America and Europe to witness this first performance, and that nearly every person in the crowd knew the words to at least a third of the songs. The floor of the arena vibrated from the impact of the thousands of bodies bouncing to 'Every Little Thing She Does is Magic' - even if it progressed into an almost unrecognizable tune as the band messed with its beat and phrasing. But the crowd cheered on, with those closer to the stage standing throughout the entire show.

An elaborate percussion platform rose from the depths of the stage for 'Wrapped Around Your Finger', where Copeland tickled the chimes and the xylophone as a sea of bright crawling lights moved over the crowd.

The audience cheered when Sting introduced 'Murder by Numbers' by informing the crowd that "back in 1983... the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart decided this song was written by the devil himself."

And people went berserk when the first recognizable bass notes of Roxanne bounced through the arena. The trio held onto the song which was the last before the encore - perhaps a little too long, but when Sting had had his fill of belting out the famous name, the crowd only cheered for more.

The night was filled with heady nostalgia and the infectious enthusiasm of three 50-plus men who seemed so deliriously happy to be back in the limelight that it was easy to forget about their age. The Police managed to write songs that are recognizable within the first few bars and which have stood the test of time. A three-song encore included 'King of Pain' and 'Every Breath You Take' and they came back out for a second encore just before 11 p.m.

"I take it you want more," Sting said. A technicolor wash lit the audience as the band launched into 'Next to You' and, while a handful of people chose to leave to avoid the inevitable traffic jam outside, the majority of the crowd stood to see just how long the band would go.

But the Police decided to end the evening on a high note, holding their clasped hands high in the air before taking a deep bow. They embraced in a hug that endearingly betrayed any insecurities they might have had before this comeback, Copeland screamed into his microphone and it was obvious to all that the night was a success.

The Police back for 30th anniversary tour...

The Police on Monday staged its first major public concert since the rock band's last 1983 album, drawing screams and cheers from a bedazzled Vancouver crowd.

The performance in the western Canadian city launched the rock band's 30th-anniversary global tour, and was a much-awaited reunion for British frontman Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland.

"Hello Vancouver!" Sting called out to the around 20,000 fans in General Motors Place, who responded with deafening screams.

"We chose Vancouver because you're Vancouver," Sting said cryptically.

Shouting over hollering and clapping, he thanked the Squamish aboriginal band for letting Police practice for the previous three weeks in its longhouse, a traditional cultural center.

Sting's short greeting and thank-you were almost the only breaks in more than two hours of non-stop music that evoked the raw energy that made Police a rock icon of the 1970s and 80s.

With a packed arena of thousands of fans mouthing or singing the familiar words, Police ran through its repertoire of hits from the opening tune of "Message in a Bottle" to "Roxanne" and "Don't Stand So Close To Me," wrapping up its second and final encore with "Every Breath you Take."

Fans in the audience stood and swayed through most of the concert, clapping along with their arms raised in a mass of humanity representing at least two generations, with middle-aged adults being accompanied by their young-adult children.

"I grew up listening to Sting," said a young woman who gave her name only as Ashley, standing beside an older woman and holding a bag from a fan shop.

She paid 40 dollars for a Police T-shirt because "this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me, and I want to remember it."

The concert was nearly sold out, although scalpers and wholesale brokers discounted the price of tickets they bought for about 100 dollars to as low as 30 dollars on the street, just minutes before the concert.

When Police announced its reunion tour last February in Los Angeles, Sting had promised the concerts would be stripped to the basics. "It's going to be three guys on stage, that's all," he said.

"The show is going to be simple but spectacular," he told reporters at the time.

The raised stage was surrounded on all sides by the audience. Doing without accessories such as jumbo-tron screens, the trio performed under a kaleidoscope of intricately choreographed lighting that bathed the arena in a multi-colored glow.

Sting was dressed simply for most of the concert in black boots, black pants and a sleeveless white muscle shirt that showed his well-toned biceps, adding a black jacket for the last few songs.

Summers, dressed in a buttoned shirt and simple pants, mostly let his guitar take the limelight.

It was Copeland who glittered at center stage, switching back and forth between two gleaming and elaborate drum ensembles as he beat away with manic energy.

After two hours of intense performance, the oft-rivalrous Sting, Summers and Copeland took their bows, hugged each other and Sting blew kisses to the audience.

Police's second concert of the tour will take place Wednesday, also in Vancouver. The band then continues on throughout North and South America, Europe and Australia before wrapping up its tour early next year.

Police kick off reunion tour, wowing crowd with hit after megahit...

The legendary punk-inspired reggae-rock band The Police kicked off its high-energy reunion tour Monday by delivering a powerhouse performance, wowing fans with hit after megahit for more than two hours straight.

The trio of singer-bassist Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland opened with Message in a Bottle, as fans took to their feet for the group's 1979 smash hit.

"How you doin'?" asked Sting, to a collective roar from spectators.

Most of the sold-out crowd of 20,000 fans at General Motors Place stayed standing for much of the show, whose second song featured a six-minute rendition of 1982's 'Synchronicity'.

The cross-generational crowd swayed to the music, offering up thunderous applause to the group that hasn't played a stadium since 1984, when it split up at the height of its success.

Some fans were in for a nostalgic night of worshipping a band that has made several trips to Vancouver while others, who weren't even born when the group split up, were out for a rocking good time with a group whose music has never gone out of style.

The band was tight, led by a buff-looking 55-year-old Sting dressed in a casual, sleeveless T-shirt that showed off his well-toned biceps as he strut his stuff across the stage - for brief stints anyway - on some numbers.

The simplicity of the set, featuring two ovals ringed with lights, complemented the complexity of the songs by the trio of musicians who have enjoyed solo careers since they last stoked a stadium full of fans.

Many in the crowd were undoubtedly in diapers when they first sang 'De do do do, De da da da' from the band's 1980 album 'Zenyatta Mondatta'.

A melodic, sensual version of 'Wrapped Around Your Finger' featured 64-year-old Summers's strengths with the guitar riffs, 54-year-old Copeland's drumming prowess and Sting's magic on the bass, eliciting some of the biggest crowd reaction.

Roxanne a tune about a letter to a prostitute that the band sang at the Grammy Awards in February before announcing its world tour, was among the biggest crowd pleasers.

Roxanne, oh! fans yelled back as a bespectacled Copeland, the band's powerful drum machine, belted out the beat and Sting swayed his guitar like a baby.

The personality of each band member shone through on each number - in-control frontman Sting, a laid-back Summers and comedian Copeland, who during 'Walking in Your Footsteps' began running around his drum set.

"Stewart, stay!" quipped Sting, much to the crowd's delight.

Most of the songs were rearranged only slightly and arguably better than their original versions.

An uptempo 'Every Breath You Take' put the spotlight on Sting's vocals that got quite the workout during the non-stop show.

The Police churned out a total of 21 hits during the concert, four during its encore that included 'King of Pain', 'So Lonely', 'Every Breath You Take' and ending with a hard-rocking version of 'Next to You', fitting for a crowd that had clearly bonded with the band.

The last tune included a backdrop of black-and-white footage from the group's heyday in the mid 1980s, when the love affair with many fans began.

Clearly, the love never went away for thousands who regard the Police as one of the most revered bands of the 80s.

The trio that reportedly had an acrimonious split before mending fences, were having as good a time as their fans.

All three held hands and bowed to the audience before hugging each other and walking off the stage after Copeland sent out a few victory yells.

Several generations of Police fans packed Vancouver's GM Place to catch the kickoff of the mega-band's world tour.

Vince Dovidio, 50, said the trio were better than he'd expected.

"They sounded really tight and put together. I just thought it was so well done and for them to play two hours straight without a break or anything was really unbelievable."

Dovidio said he didn't think the band would ever reunite after 23 years but were obviously glad they did.

"They looked like they really enjoyed being together. They looked good together, they looked happy and the crowd got into it because of that."

James Lumsden, 22, wasn't yet born when the Police broke up.

Lumsden said he got into their music from hearing it on the radio, from friends and because his mom likes the music.

"I really enjoyed the fact that Sting's guitar and shirt looked like he had saved them from the 70s," he said.

Lumsden said he enjoyed the show so much that he'd go again at the band's next sold-out Vancouver show on Wednesday if he had tickets.

Dietmar Cloes flew from Germany to catch all three of the Police's Vancouver shows - including a private concert for fan club members on Sunday, fulfilling a lifetime dream.

"I had to see them once in my life," he said.

"I'm such a big fan, I collect every bit. But one thing was missing and that was a live concert."

The band's exclusive fan-only Sunday show was a bit of a disappointment but Cloes had higher hopes for the other performances.

Dave Olson, 39, of North Vancouver, said he didn't sense this tour was a cash-grab.

"A lot of times when bands get back together I say it's because someone's got alimony payments," he said. "But it doesn't seem like it so much this time."

The long-awaited reunion tour kicked off with the son of Sting fronting the opening act.

From Vancouver, the Police will head to Edmonton and later hit Montreal and Toronto.

Media from across Europe covered the first stop on a tour that will include cities in North and South America, Europe and Australia by the time it wraps in early 2008.

The Police bury the hatchet, starting in Vancouver...

Nearly a quarter-century has passed since the Police sang their last official note. Hope, or perhaps boredom, has now brought them back together. And when the legendary eighties trio kicked off their world reunion tour in Vancouver on Monday night, Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers were clearly castaways no more.

The sold-out crowd at General Motors Place - more than 20,000 ecstatic fans strong - screamed their appreciation as the band dove into Message in a Bottle to start off a two-hour concert that breathed new life into a largely rearranged hit list.

The band didn't write any new material for the 100-date tour, but anyone who was expecting the furious punk-flamed reggae rock of the Police in their prime was in for a sedate surprise. Many of the songs were retooled with a mellower, jazzier, tropical-island vibe.

A melodic version of Wrapped Around Your Finger received one of the most dramatic rearrangements, capped by Copeland racing back and forth between twinkly chimes, xylophone and drums on his elaborate raised percussion platform.

Sting gave Walking On the Moon a slow hypnotic bass line. Summers reggaed up the guitar for a slinky, nearly unrecognizable Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, then let loose in a smashing solo during a medley of Voices in My Head/When The World Is Running Down.

Walking In Your Footsteps started off slow, then flipped hard and fast, after Copeland stepped out from behind the drum set to run across the stage, screaming like a maniac.

"Stewart, stay!" Sting joked, much to the crowd's delight.

Truth Hits Everybody, Spirits in the Material World and Driven to Tears could have used some of that same speed.

"This is our first official concert in 25 years," Sting announced, although it seemed hardly necessary, considering how many devoted fans, having travelled from and wide, shelled out 5 for the best seats in the house.

"We chose Vancouver because you're Vancouver, alright?" the lead singer said, as if that were self-explanatory.

"I like this city very much," he added.

The Police have been rehearsing in Vancouver on and off since January, when the first rumours of a reunion tour began to surface. The band, which sold a staggering 50 million albums during a seven-year career, parted ways in 1984, after the last date of its Synchronicity world tour.

The infamous feuds that fuelled the break-up have obviously been set aside. The band seemed genuinely happy to be onstage together and shared many laughs with the audience. Don't Stand So Close To Me, for instance, took on new meaning when Sting introduced the song by spraying breath mint in his mouth and sniffed his armpit.

Sting, now 55, was divinely slithery - in a sexy Sanskrit serpent, Kundalini yoga kind of way - with his rippling biceps, piercing blue eyes and wiggling hips. Copeland, 54, was the "sporty" cop in a retro headband, cycling shirt and golf gloves. He gave the crashing performance of his career. Summers, 64, was as low-key as ever. Dressed in pressed slacks and a silk shirt, he almost looked like a stockbroker who had thrown off his tie to kick out the jams.

The show was a relatively stripped down affair - "just three guys and a stage," as Sting had promised at a press conference earlier this year.

There was no proscenium or backdrop on the split-level oval floor. The special effects were mostly limited to the raised platform and flashing lights. Later on, during Roxanne, the entire stadium was bathed in a red glow. And for Invisible Sun, a video suddenly appeared on the six jumbo screens above the stage, playing clips of war-torn Iraq and people drinking from muddy pools. A subtle reference, perhaps, to WaterAid, the official tour charity.

By the end of the night, that old familiar Police magic was back in full force. King of Pain, So Lonely and Every Breath You Take rounded out the first encore. Urged on by thunderous applause, the band returned to end the concert with driving rock version of Next to You and a boisterous round of hugs for each other.

The boys had better hang on to that love. They've still got about 99 concerts and six continents to go.

The Police return to rock Vancouver...

It appears to be an immutable law of rock and roll that every former band, no matter how dysfunctional and personally incompatible, must eventually reform.

After twenty-one years apart, The Police finally fulfilled their duty, taking to the stage for the first of two sold-out nights at the 20,000 seater GM Centre in Vancouver, Canada, to launch their comeback world tour.

It had been such a long time that Sting (apparently the officer in charge) felt it necessary to introduce his bandmates to each other. "Andy, this is Stewart," he joked. Well, I think he was joking.

The Police were never so much a power trio as a power struggle trio. Although the three virtuoso musicians use the primary instruments of rock and roll (drums, bass, electric guitar and voice), they don't so much meld together into a tight, cohesive force as continually pull apart, each straining to take the songs in a different direction.

With atmospheric guitarist Andy Summers, wildly percussive drummer Stewart Copeland and even Sting himself embarking on structural, rhythmic and melodic digressions from and excursions around the central themes of what, in essence, are incredibly succinct and classically structured songs, this is as close to jazz as pop gets.

The effect is like Cream reinterpreting the Beatles. At its best it is hypnotically mesmerising, sucking you into a sonic and harmonic jigsaw of musical interaction before delivering you back to the comfort zone of the chorus.

At its worst, or at least its most self-indulgent, it is baffling, and not only to the audience. "I don't recognise that, what are we doing?" Sting mischievously enquired of Summers during one particularly oblique intro.

After so many years doodling about on his own, Summers was clearly relishing the opportunity to doodle in front of an adoring audience, disguising hooklines with echo and ambient effects, and unleashing torrents of frantic solos.

The song in question turned out to be 'Don't Stand So Close To Me', which may have been one of the themes of a surprisingly low-tech event.

Perhaps to emphasise musicianship over showmanship, the only significant concession to modern developments in staging were three giant screens, with a single camera allocated to each band member.

It was instructive how rarely they strayed across the lines to appear in the same shot.

To be honest, anyone could be forgiven for not wanting to get too close to Copeland. Wearing an ill-considered cycling suit, headband and spectacles, and pulling furious gurning faces, the hyperactive percussionist resembles an escapee from an asylum for the criminally insane. I don't think I have ever seen a drummer get so involved in the action of his hi-hats, frequently neglecting the rest of his kit for extended periods, only to suddenly bang the snare drum in the place you would least expect it.

At once polyrhythmic and spacious, he makes few concessions for those sections of the crowd who wish to clap along.

Singalongs were just as frustrating, given Sting's penchant for melodic modulation , although when things were straying too far afield he would lift spirits with a bit of trademark "ee-yo-ee-yo-yo"ing.

If at times it feels as if there is no centre to The Police, everything is ultimately held together by the sheer force of Sting's charisma.

His band mates may be showing signs of wear and tear, but this walking advertisement for the power of yoga still looks like a rock god, and still commands attention.

His voice has deepened over the years but has a richness and soulfulness that added emotional dimension to slowed down, intimate versions of 'Invisible Sun', 'Wrapped Around Your Finger' and 'King of Pain'.

And on a showstopping 'Roxanne', even his yodelling sounded positively bereft.

A rapturously received set delivered every song a Police fan would want to hear (even if it took a while to identify them all).

If there was a slightly frantic air to much of the proceedings, then it may be simply a case of trying too hard to make up for lost time.

Hopefully, by the time the tour reaches Britain in September, The Police will have developed a more softly softly approach to crowd control .

The Police are back and almost perfect...

It's almost criminal.

Two decades after splitting up, The Police are back - and they're already displaying signs of greatness.

Whew.

As the clock ticked closer to the start of the trio's tour kick-off on Monday, you could feel the anticipation build in Vancouver's GM Place.

Would Sting and his bandmates be any good? Would the old chemistry still be there?

Twenty years of waiting, of quiet frustration, of unspoken fear dissolved as soon as the opening strains of Message in a Bottle filled the hockey arena.

More than 20,000 fans roared with unbridled joy - and shed a few tears of gratitude - as Sting, drummer Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers then played 'Synchronicity II', 'Spirits in the Material World' and other hits from their five albums.

Happiness was also written all over Sting's face as the trio ripped through furious renditions of Voices Inside My Head and When the World Is Running Down.

The Police are still far from perfect. 'Spirits in the Material World' sounded ragged and Summers stumbled trying to do a knee bend during 'Synchronicity II', but Copeland more than made up for any deficiencies.

He truly is the world's best drummer.

Monday's sold-out show was the first of two in Vancouver.

On Sunday, about 5,000 fans were treated to a dress rehearsal in the hockey arena. No journalists or photographers were allowed into the exclusive event.

Edmonton mom Shauna Stawnichy and her husband, Randy, won tickets through a local radio station. "I felt lucky to have seen it," she said after the two-hour rehearsal. "You wouldn't think they hadn't played in a long time," he added.

Sunday's run-through was a casual and friendly affair, according to the Stawnichys. The set list included 'Don't Stand So Close To Me', 'Every Breath You Take', 'So Lonely' and 'Next To You'.

The Police reconvene in Vancouver...

During the first real break between songs at the Police's official comeback gig Monday night, Sting (pictured, left) took to the mic to take care of some official duties. "Because we haven't been together in 25 years," he said, "I want to introduce the band." He turned to his two fellow Policemen and followed that setup with the oldest punchline in the book: "Andy, this is Stewart..."

Ba-da-dum! In fact, there were signs during the two-hour tour opener at Vancouver's GM Place arena that maybe these three have rekindled something resembling a friendship. Toward the end of their original contentious time together, in the mid-'80s, the theme song for their relationship might have been "Don't Stand So Close to Me." Now, with the way they were shouting accolades at each other Monday night, you could imagine them adopting a cuddlier tune as their interpersonal mantra, like "Every Little Thing [H]e Does is Magic." All right, so it was Sting and drummer Stewart Copeland (center, rear) trading most of the mutually complimentary blurbs, since guitarist Andy Summers (right), is not the emotionally demonstrative type. But we will take it on faith that he, too, was joining in the lovefest, on the inside.

Is it the sheer inevitability of renewed friendship that got these three back together 24 years after their last album, 23 years after their last regular touring gig, 21 years after their last full public performance of any kind (but who's counting)? Probably not even the most idealistic fan wants to be quite that na ve. Yet even if it does come down to a classic case of the lure of filthy lucre as an incentive to take up unfinished business, it's still nice to see the lads seeming to enjoy one another's company. I can't claim to fully comprehend what stood between them all these years, though I have been in Sting's company when the subject of the Police tours of yore came up, and I would see what almost seemed like a visible shudder in his otherwise implacable manner. But this much we know: Two and a half decades and the absence of massive amounts of blow can both be great healers.

Everyone's favorite message-in-a-bottle-blonds are doing both arenas and stadiums this summer and fall, in what should easily be the year's biggest grossing tour. Getting to the concessions booth, you can quickly tell there'll be few attempts to position the trio as a "new and improved" version of the Police, on or off stage: All the T-shirts have vintage images of the band, and if you want one featuring Sting's currently close-cropped 'do and not a new wave modified mullet, you're out of luck and will have to hold onto your Lute Tour 2006 T. The set list, of course, followed along the same strictly retrospective lines. My only serious complaint about Monday's show will be what most attendees will like most about it: There is no new material, and nothing that hasn't been a single, been on a best-of, or been considered a radio hit. By comparison, any Rolling Stones show of the last few years would be considered the height of adventurousness. On the plane back to Los Angeles from Vancouver on Tuesday, I heard some middle-aged fans in their new tour T-shirts enthusing to the stewards about how the show delivered exactly what they wanted no more, no less with the bonus that, unlike some Sting solo tours they'd evidently had to force themselves to endure, there were no whole-scale, radical rearrangements of the classic material. If I'd heard this ringing endorsement of the tour ahead of time, I might have been tempted to skip out on it altogether, since seeing a once-vital act willfully freezing itself in amber isn't really my thing.

I still wish they'd see fit to burden us with a new composition, or trot out some obscure album tracks, or even solo material (an "All This Time"/Rumble Fish medley, anyone?). Yet even with my media-elitist bias against sheer crowd-pleasing nostalgia, I was taken in by Monday's show and how the three gendarmes seemed to be finding ways to keep it interesting for themselves within the potentially overfamiliar playground they'd reconstructed. All three of these guys have spent a good part of their almost quarter-century layoff from one another doing more "serious" music, including jazz and various world beat-type stuff, so it's not as if they were about to come back and mime to tracks. Summers, in particular, played his solos and pretty much everything but the basic riffs like a man who hadn't gotten the memo that he wasn't still in one of his jazz fusion bands. Copeland, of course, pretty well erases the line between "backbeat" and "fills"; his great gift is being able to complicate the rhythms without making the drunks in the crowd put down their pumping fists. And Sting, while not changing anything up enough to alienate my airplane buddy, did introduce subtle harmonic variations that kept things just off-kilter enough for those of us perverse enough to like our oldies off-kilter.

The opening "Message in a Bottle" was pretty straightforward ("You know what to do," Sting said, right before the "Sending out an S.O.S." sing-along. They did). But by the second number, "Synchronicity II," you could sense 'em playing with things a little, in the way they settled back and let a little bit of momentum drop out in the buildup to the chorus. This reoccurred throughout the night: letting part of a verse or bridge get unusually quiet, compared to the recorded version, just before the hook kicked in. Even at the end of the show, they were doing this, reducing parts of "Every Breath You Take" almost to a whisper before bringing the volume back up again. You could suppose that a little of this was due to guys who are now in their 50s and 60s trying to pace themselves a little bit though Sting, muscled up in his sleeveless T-shirt, and Copeland, in a biker's shirt and headband and looking like he was fresh from the Tour de France, were clearly in fighting trim. (Summers, the eldest member, had a more dapper look, so again, we'd have to guess at his physique.) Mostly, I think, the interesting ebb and flow that they introduced into some of the songs was just matured musicians' sense that real dynamics help push a powerful tune homeward. Not that this was a totally new discovery: "So Lonely," which also showed up among the encores, helped prove that the Police always had a potent sense of dynamics, with the way its reggae verses give way to a driving rock chorus.

They didn't take a lot of time out for witticisms. But Sting did have a good recollection about "Murder by Numbers": "In 1983 when I was 12 the Reverend Jimmy Swaggart, and I use the word "reverend" loosely, claimed this next song was written by the devil himself... It's always really puzzled Andy and myself, because we wrote the f---in' song." And then, as if in Swaggart's honor, they played a great version of the tune that had Sting introducing a descending bass line that really did sound like a descent into a particularly cool level of hell.

There will be those who would prefer that the Police mess with the original arrangements even less than the modest amount that they have. (You heard some of this grumbling after their mildly rearranged version of "Roxanne" at the Grammys a few months ago.) I think there's enough fast, loud, and unalloyed stuff in the set as it currently stands to placate these people. But the strict new wave fetishists certainly get their wish in the final encore, which happens to be the band's first single, the reasonably punky "Next to You," played more or less in its original boyish form.

So there may be "a time to put away childish things," as the Bible teaches, but as rock & roll teaches, there is always a time to pick them back up again. (Unless, maybe, you're David Byrne or Captain Beefheart, who are just about the last high-minded reunion-tour resisters still holding out on us.) Having plowed more respectable musical fields over the decades, the Police probably do regard returning to these chestnuts as kid stuff. What'll be really interesting to see is whether they can reconvene as grown-ups not just for this highly enjoyable nostalgia trip but a new album that would reflect all the individual trips they've been on, as well as make something mature out of their still-rich chemistry. What I m really curious about, I guess, is what it would sound like if these guys made a record as friends. That, I suspect, would truly be arresting.

The post-50 Police rock - For the reunited trio, 2007 is the new '80s as it enthrals fans on the first tour stop...

All fans had to do to feel absolutely fantastic about the Police reunion tour, which began Monday at General Motors Place, was to keep their eyes on drummer Stewart Copeland.

Wearing a very new wave red-and-black bicycle shirt and sporty headband, hopping like a leprechaun between an imposing percussion setup and an equally sizable drum kit, the 54-year-old bard of rocking polyrhythms couldn't stop grinning. Sometimes, as Copeland kept the pulse going while guitarist Andy Summers bent chords in all directions and bassist/rock god Sting tinkered with his vocal phrasing, the grin turned toward a grimace. But rarely do players exhibit this much glee during a two-hour arena rock show, especially one marked by unremitting singalong choruses of 'yee-o!' and enough elegant meandering to suggest that Sting had won some battles in rehearsal.

Copeland had good reason to be happy. Though not flawless, the Police's two-hour return to the arena stage amply demonstrated what made the band such a force in pop two decades ago. It's something surprisingly rare in hugely successful bands: risk-taking interplay that stresses the subtleties in songs as well as the hooks, among players different enough to spar but smart enough to prioritize the groove.

At the turn of the 1980s, this wasn't as common as it should have been, considering the stealth influence of reggae, funk and even disco on new wave, the loose subgenre the Police spearheaded. Only a few groups beyond the post-punk underground - notably the Talking Heads, may they reunite someday! - could generate as much dance floor fun as the famously blond trio, whose tour reaches the Southland next month. In a long set that bopped from hit to hit to hit, starting with 'Message in a Bottle' and ending with a cheerfully frenzied 'Next to You,' from the band's 1978 debut, 'Outlandos d'Amour,' the three musicians chased one another's leads and finished one another's musical sentences, providing more than enough stimulus to make up for a near-complete absence of crowd-pleasing spectacle.

The music was the spectacle. Sting's glamour (now enhanced by what must be a Madonna-esque workout regime, whose benefits he displayed in a taut white tank and yoga-friendly black stretch pants) and his flowery but often sinister lyrics about love and obsession defined the Police's pop identity. But without his nimble bass playing and singing, Copeland's breakneck inventiveness on percussion and Summers' subtly cocky way of filling space with effects and syncopation, the band would have been merely hit makers, not genre leaders.

Caribbean cool was mixed with a very British surliness and a prog rocker's love of twists and turns to form the basis of the Police palette. Over the years, another characteristic emerged: Police music somehow seemed fast and slow, intense and spacious. 'Roxanne,' the group's first hit and, judging by the crowd's reaction at GM Place, still its biggest, set the mould with its syrupy verses and jittery chorus. Many variations followed as the trio worked on the intricate rhythms and tonalities that lent Police hits their intricate aura.

At GM Place, the band reached for that complexity again and hit it more often than not. The staging was spare, with only a few flashing lights and video images filling in for the dancers, props and signage that fluff up most contemporary arena shows. Perhaps it's vainglorious for the Police to think that its playing is exciting enough, but it's also correct. 'Synchronicity II' was six minutes of zigzagging guitar and fuming vocals pushed forward by Copeland's stick on the snare. 'The Bed's Too Big Without You' and 'Roxanne' turned reggae's dislocated lilt into the sound of romantic anxiety. 'Every Breath You Take,' with its lovely melody and upsetting lyrics about sexual thrall, showed how the band uses prettiness as a trick to get across some transgressively nasty sentiments.

Most songs extended beyond the original versions, allowing everyone to stretch and show off. But this approach occasionally backfired. Sting's highly successful post-Police career has favoured smooth, jazzy forays into adult contemporary pop, and this sensibility sneaked into the arrangements, making 'Invisible Sun' unbearably mellow (despite a stark video somehow about the Middle East crisis) and 'Walking on the Moon' simply boring. That song also fell victim to Sting's penchant for the Harry Belafonte-esque refrain 'yee-o,' which made for far too much audience call and response.

Such missteps and detours may be why it took fans almost an hour to really start dancing, though they ardently cheered from the set's first note. The Police is not a band that should dawdle. Yet Summers sometimes drifted into private dialogue with his effects pedals, and Sting made some strange vocal choices - he was too stingy with his falsetto and laid back when he could have pushed harder. Fastest songs came off best, requiring the trio to put individual interests aside and lock in.

As for the limitations wrought by age, they were limited to the occasional glitch in Sting's upper register. A few songs were slowed down, maybe to encourage those jazzy jams or maybe just because Sting likes to take his time. If that's the reason, Sting should reconsider his strategy. After many years of playing the field, he's finally back with the guys who can really kick his carefully toned backside. Especially that drummer. And he's delighted to have the chance.

Still top of the cops...

The Police have reunited for their first world tour in 23 years. This isn't a record Cream reunited in 2005 after 36 years but the gap feels longer than it is, perhaps because The Police's original stint is widely believed to have ended in acrimony.

Some 1.5million tickets have been sold, for £84million, and there's a frisson in the crisp Pacific air as the first show approaches.

It will be a story either way, whether the evening ends in hugs or glowers.

The Police's hits are staples of oldie radio and plenty of young people are here, many with their parents. Among them is Joe Sumner, singer with the support act, Fiction Plane: his father is Sting.

It can't be easy having a dad who's that famous, or that fit. Sting comes bouncing out looking even more toned than usual.

With his white T-shirt, black drainpipes and rippling biceps, he's a very buff old buffer.

Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland have aged well, too. They have all their hair, although Copeland has gone grey, got glasses and is wearing the inadvisably closefitting top of the midlife cyclist.

Everybody is trim: the only inch of flab in the whole band is Summers's double chin.

At 64, he has earned it.

They start with 'Message In A Bottle', an instant thrill. They've been rehearsing for two months and it shows: they're as tight as Sting's trousers.

Copeland is a powerhouse at the drum kit, while Sting and Summers ooze relaxed concentration, like sportsmen who are trying hard not to try too hard.

They end with a synchronised jump and the crowd goes wild. In mid-ovation, Sting takes a swig from a mug 'something herby', his publicist reckons. The jump is straight from The Police's post-punk roots; the tea shows how far they have travelled since. The whole gig is rather like that, mixing the punchy pop-reggae of the hits with the sophisticated noodling that came to dominate their albums.

After a second track, the propulsive Synchronicity II, Sting says he'd like to introduce the band: 'Andy, this is Stewart.' It's a clever way to deal with the passing decades.

Later they shower each other with praise: 'on drums, the incredible Mr Stewart Copeland'; 'on vocals, the amazing Sting'.

Even their compliments are competitive.

'We've got all these famous songs,' Summers had told the local paper, ominously, 'but we look at them like new pieces of material... We spent the last two months fiddling around until we felt it was good.' The fans, who have paid more than £100, may have felt it was good enough already, but reuniting is one thing and reproducing records another. It would be unfair to expect every little thing they do to be just as it was.

The results are mixed. 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' is slowed down and thrown away, 'Walking On The Moon' is more ambient and less angular, 'Truth Hits Everybody' is drearily rocky and 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' combines a fizzing energy with some intricate decorative work from Copeland, now standing at something resembling the musical instrument stall in a souk.

The songs that work best are mostly the simpler ones 'De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da', cheesy but nice, and 'So Lonely', glum but cheery. 'Roxanne' could be simple too, but after a strong start it drifts off into the land of noodle and loses momentum.

Sting sings better than he ever did in 1978 and The Police's sound comes through undated, perhaps because it was so quirky in the first place. The anachronisms in the lyrics 'my LP records', 'an Armalite' just add to the charm.

The staging is stylishly minimal, with strong close-ups on the big screen to convey Copeland's eye-bulging delight, Summers's studious virtuosity and Sting's hammy facepulling. It's not easy to dance with a bass guitar, but he tries it briefly and manages an endearing silliness.

All that's missing is an emotional punch to match the opening. It finally comes when they play 'Every Breath You Take', with its debonair menace and perfect rounded melody. The evening ends in hugs.

The Police Opening Night in Vancouver: Their First Real Gig Since 'Synchronicity'...

It wasn't more than two songs into the Vancouver B.C. debut of the Police reunion tour, that Sting felt comfortable enough with his old bandmates to make a joke. 'We haven't played together in twenty-five years," he laughed, 'and I want to introduce the band." Of course, no introduction was necessary for the most anticipated rock tour of the summer, one that reunites Sting, guitarist Andy Summers, and drummer Stewart Copeland. ''Andy,'' Sting said, smiling at the 64-year-old Summers, ''meet Stewart.'' Unlike the Police's last tour, in 1983, where inter-band tensions abounded, this quip brought smiles from all.

They hadn't played a full official Police concert since the Synchronicity tour, if you exclude their Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame induction, but from their opening ramped-up 'Message in the Bottle' one might have imagined they never broke up. Perhaps to befit the reunion, Sting wore an ancient holey white t-shirt that he must have had since the eighties - all the better to show off his yoga-toned abs. Copeland wore a headband, while Summers was dressed in the slacks and shirts of a professional jazz musician.

And if professional musicianship was always the hallmark that made the Police a success, it was again evident as they gave new life to well-known hits, removing the reggae-lilt of 'Roxanne', and replacing it with a slowed jazzier tempo. That they felt comfortable enough to re-imagine a well-known catalog shows the confidence of seasoned veterans. While it wasn't exactly ''the Police unplugged'', the frantic punk edge of early hits like 'Can't Stand Losing You' and 'Don't Stand So Close to Me' was swapped for more room for Copeland's improvisations, and Summers tasty Wes Montgomery-style guitar solos. The extended songs also gave Sting space to widen the choruses, and he turned 'Roxanne' into a call-and-response with the audience that could have come straight from the Van Morrison repertoire. Sting sang 'The Bed's Too Big Without You' as if he meant it, despite the fact that his wife was obvious in the middle of the eighth row.

Most successful of all the reinterpretations was the re-imagining of 'Wrapped Around Your Finger', turned into the kind of haunted and plaintive ballad that Sting's solo catalog is known for. The show only included hits from the Police cannon, skipping solo or new material, though the night felt more celebratory than nostalgic. The Police were always a populist band, which was exactly why fans, including Eddie Vedder and Penelope Cruz, had so coveted tickets for this tour debut. Some of the tension that propelled early Police tours - when the band was imploding internally and Copeland was writing swear words on his drums - was missing in a set that was both generous and predictable. Still, when the Police encored with 'King of Pain', 'Every Breath You Take', and a finale of 'Next to You', these familiar but resurrected hits were delivered with the kind of conviction that originally made the Police the sincere rock band you could love without guilt.

Police at GM Place, Vancouver...

When you have spent the official price of $220 Canadian dollars for a ticket to see the band that soundtracked your youth, is there any other option but to enjoy yourself? Seemingly not.

Twenty-two years after the Police dissolved in a mire of acrimony, their first date of this mammoth reunion tour had all but a handful of the 20,000 fans at this ice hockey stadium standing from the beginning. Were those fans so inclined - say, during the more protracted instrumental sections of Walking In Your Footsteps - they could have done the maths on a 21-song set and worked out that they had spent more than dollars per song. But, then, perhaps it's crass to put a price tag on an unforgettable evening. It may be a material world, but as one of the evening's more familiar songs served to remind us, we are spirits in it.

Besides, if you wanted to be crude about it, some songs performed well for the money. With the three huge screens over the stage yet to flicker into life, the jukebox-precise accuracy with which the Police played Message in a Bottle ferried you straight back to 1979. There was some narrative sense in playing the song ahead of everything else. Five months before the song's original release, the Police played the nearby Commodore Ballroom only to be booed off stage. Sting must have derived some poetic gratification, then, from having his hundred million bottles returned with such vocal gusto.

At times, the creative tensions which characterised the Police's nine years together worked to their advantage. Stewart Copeland's syncopations and fills ensured that Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic stopped short of sounding banal. As he busied himself, the 56-year-old former schoolteacher out front proceeded to do that baffling thing which he spent so much of the Police's first incarnation doing - stepping out to the front of the stage and getting the audience to join in with his famous "aaay-o" reggae yodel.

Other songs were harder to follow because the Police seemed to have forgotten how to play them. Twenty-one years ago, the original recording of Don't Stand So Close To Me - in which Sting famously rhymed Nabokov with "shake and cough" - troubled the singer so much that the Police re-recorded it as a farewell single. In Vancouver that dodgy couplet was the least of the song's problems. Sounding not so much off-key as avant-garde, the band seemed so embarrassed by what they had done to it that they steamed straight into the furrow-browed conscience rock of Driven To Tears, to no greater avail. It was a slough that highlighted a problem unique to a group of the Police's stature.

With virtually no bands in their wake citing their five albums as an influence, the Police remain a group remembered for the quality of their singles. Good as those singles were, there simply weren't enough of them to fill a two-hour show. Perhaps by way of compensation, the tanned, muscular frontman mounted the drum riser for When the World Is Running Down and wiggled a pair of buttocks that could crack a walnut with a mere twitch. While thousands of Canadian women sighed contentedly, countless Canadian men in freshly-starched polo shirts nodded sagely to Andy Summers's bluesy soloing.

With a good tune at their disposal though, you could forgive the Police anything. Wrapped Around Your Finger was a dark triumph; as a hydraulic podium lifted Copeland to his own little percussion grotto it served to remind you how peculiarly gloomy many of the Police's big hits were. Paradoxically, the "feel-good" climax to the show saw several of their darkest songs played in quick succession.

For the duration of Invisible Sun, the sight of Sting in a sleeveless white top gave way to even more distressing scenes. Now that the song had helped to solve the troubles in Northern Ireland, monochrome footage of life in Middle East war zones accentuated the febrile, sluggish manner in which they played it.

Such is the yearning magic of Roxanne that not even Sting's determination to set off yet another round of reggae yodelling diminished its magnificence. It was, of course, this song that Alex Turner referenced in Arctic Monkeys' When the Sun Goes Down.

The uncool truth is that, at their early best, Sting's songs had enough poetry in their soul and enough soul in their poetry to stand alongside the new vanguard of pop wordsmiths. As a solo artist, though, he has struggled to find musicians willing to square up to him and his loftier conceits. In the Police - a band made and broken by musical differences - that was never an issue.

As the Police departed the stage after a rapturously received Every Breath You Take, there was an unprecedented bout of group hugs. One night down; 71 to go. Better keep some hugs in reserve.

The Police kick off tour in Vancouver...

Sometimes when old mates haven't spent a lot of quality time together in a while - say, a quarter century or so - they don't want to be encumbered by too many distractions.

So when The Police kicked off their first concert tour since the early '80s on Memorial Day, at GM Place, there was no elaborate stage show, no gospel choir, no celebrity guest stars or venerated sessions players jumping on stage to jam with the band. Instead, Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers made their reunion a tribute to the muscular but intricate minimalism on which their chemistry was founded.

Granted, that chemistry wasn't always as easy or exuberant as it sounded. It was fitting, in a sense, that The Police would launch their North American trek on a holiday associated with war. A famously fractious outfit in its heyday, the trio combusted after little more than half a decade, during which it produced some of the most accomplished and irresistible pop music of the rock era.

But it was also appropriate that any ego clashes or differences in temperament that likely informed the band's premature demise were nowhere to be seen, or heard, on Monday night. Unlike, say, the Rolling Stones, The Police never affected the air of an eternally adolescent gang; both the camaraderie and the tension between its three members seemed tied to their musical goals and values. And in the end, however distinctive Sting's, Summers' and Copleand's ambitions and contributions, their recordings together were exercises in expert musicianship.

Monday's show was very much in that spirit, with each player supporting and enhancing his colleagues, sometimes subtly, sometimes playfully. Through a set in which they delivered virtually all their old hits - 'Every Breath You Take', 'Don't Stand So Close To Me', 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic', 'Message In A Bottle' and 'Roxanne' - the three consistently saluted each other's strengths.

Sting, as the frontman and songwriter - and the Police-man whose instant solo success made the band's split a foregone conclusion - led the proceedings with grace, generosity and humor, introducing Summers as a "legendary" guitarist and Copeland as "the greatest drummer in the world."

Copeland, who has been regaled with similar praise by more than one modern rock musician, certainly showed no sign of being the worse for wear; his playing was as crisply athletic and effortlessly intuitive as ever. And Summers, one of the most undervalued guitarists in rock & roll, buttressed his inspired bursts of ambience with meatier solos.

The Police's live performances were always showcases for their superior virtuosity, with songs taking on different shadings both structurally and stylistically; and this was especially true at this concert, which at times seemed to aim to compensate for a lack of new material by reworking old favorites. During a string of classics in the latter half, including 'The Bed's Too Big Without You' and 'De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da', some numbers may have not been instantly recognizable to casual fans; and there were probably some who lamented the liberties taken.

Judging by audience reaction, though, most of The Police's fans were as happy to have the guys back on their own terms as they were chuffed to be there.

The Police's Reinvestigation...

The members of the Police - Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers and Gordon Sumner, better known as Sting - were already young veterans of the British music scene when they first performed together on May 28, 1977. Wise middle-aged veterans now, they played no new material during Monday's 30th-anniversary reunion concert here, a 110-minute show that officially kicked off their lengthy tour. Instead, they enriched their music by stripping away much of the familiar bombast and pop trappings to expose the songs' raw structures and rebuild them in unexpected ways.

Four months of rehearsals began with the men running through a repertoire culled from five albums to gauge how their evolution as musicians had changed their approach to the material, Mr. Copeland said when we spoke by phone a few days before opening night. Sting, he noted, has been playing these songs for decades, though often with arrangements that differed from the band's recordings. "So we originally had to come back to the Police versions," Mr. Copeland said. Then, he added, "we've been reworking those songs into a new pocket," using a musician's term for a groove.

Musicianship is at the core of the trio's relationship and the Police's enduring legacy. When they first formed the band, Sting had been playing jazz fusion, Mr. Copeland progressive rock and Mr. Summers was a seasoned sideman. Their refined skills put them at odds with the energetic but musically undemanding punk scene in the U.K., but they also gave them a way to make interesting commercially minded music that drew on reggae rhythms and a jazz-like sensibility. At their peak, the Police were a band you could sing along to - or you could ignore their melodies completely and still find the music fascinating. And they sold some 50 million albums world-wide.

After the band splintered in 1985, Sting became a pop-music superstar in his own right, bringing jazz and world-music inflections to his increasingly urbane songs. Mr. Copeland composed orchestral works and film and TV scores, and he drummed with the legendary jazz-fusion bassist Stanley Clarke and, later, Oysterhead, a rock trio featuring Primus bassist Les Claypool and Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio. Mr. Summers wrote film and TV scores, and he recorded a string of intriguing albums, including a Thelonious Monk tribute. "The stature of the original Police made it possible for us to work with the best of the best of the best," Mr. Copeland said.

For Mr. Copeland, the appeal of a reunion is blending what he called Sting's "raw animal power" with Mr. Summers's sophisticated approach to guitar. As for his role as the band's engine, he said, "I'm driving us back into rock. That's the art form where we can distill ideas."

Their evolution as musicians was apparent early in the Vancouver set, as the trio went to work on a frill-free monochrome stage on which Mr. Copeland's expanded drum kit was bracketed by a wall of amplifiers. Their third number, "Spirits in the Material World," hinted at the night's possibilities: Mr. Summers relaxed the staccato chording he featured on the original and left the responsibility for the midsection up for grabs. Throughout the song, while Mr. Copeland played deft figures on the cymbals or slammed the snare, his band mates alternated roles exploring the middle and holding down the bottom, approximating the familiar riffs on the disk but going elsewhere when the opportunity arose.

But as the show progressed, filling the midsection no longer seemed an objective. In "Walking on the Moon," Sting and Mr. Copeland created a tense platform for Mr. Summers. But rather than soloing, he joined the rhythm section, keeping the tension alive until Sting resumed the verse. Similarly, at times only Mr. Copeland's cymbals relieved the rumble at the bottom of "Every Little Thing She Does." Mr. Summers's punchy playing on "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" gave way to an alluring bass pattern by Sting that the band wisely extended.

On vocals, Sting often held back -- crooning where in the past he'd shouted, and muting his energy to pull the audience into the mystery of the new arrangements. In strong voice throughout the evening, Sting kept the verse and chorus at the same level during "Don't Stand So Close," and his measured reading of "Invisible Sun" gave it an ominous tone. His staid approach to "King of Pain" changed its focus and liberated it, making the song far more affecting.

Sting's melodies are so strong that thorough deconstruction doesn't alienate the songs from their pop roots. On a muted "Walking in Your Footsteps" that drifted far from its original structure, Mr. Summers finally anchored it in rock with a snarling solo. "Wrapped Around Your Finger" was built on Mr. Copeland's melodic playing on chimes, bells and kettle drums. In both cases, the audience sang along as if little had changed.

Which isn't to say the band set out to distance itself completely from its classic sound. The opening number, "Message in a Bottle," as well as "Roxanne" and "Can't Stand Losing You," were faithfully rendered. Nor did everything work exceptionally well: Several songs seemed to wane, as if the trio couldn't find a foothold, reminding the audience that it was opening night and that no amount of rehearsal will reveal what will work on stage when risk is at play.

But when the group chose to add delicate textures or create suspense off a single chord, it showed how well something new suits something familiar, and how experience and a sense of adventure can drive musicians forward.

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Police Reunion: 2007/08

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