The Police Reunion Tour

History

On 24 January 2007, Rock101, a radio station in Vancouver, British Columbia, reported the trio was coming together again and had begun tour rehearsals in Vancouver. There were numerous sightings of the group and their entourage in the Vancouver area as expectation built of such a tour.

The reunited Police performed at the 49th Annual Grammy Awards on 11 February 2007 in Los Angeles. On 12 February, The Police held rehearsals and a press conference for the media at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles, where they confirmed they would be undertaking the world tour starting in Vancouver in May. It was also announced the opening act for the North American and European legs of the tour would be Fiction Plane, a pop-rock band from England featuring lead singer and bass guitarist Joe Sumner, the son of Sting. In Philadelphia, Scottish rock band The Fratellis also joined Fiction Plane as an opening act. In addition, Maroon 5 joined the bill in Miami and Maxïmo Park joined The Police and Fiction Plane on the Twickenham dates, London.

Since concert tickets went up for sale worldwide, some concert dates were sold out in minutes. Tickets for the entire British tour, the band's first in 24 years, sold out within 30 minutes. Worldwide, they have sold about 1.5m tickets with revenues reaching $168m.

The Police and Best Buy released a collector's set on 7 October 2008 entitled Certifiable: Live in Buenos Aires, which includes an entire concert recorded live in Buenos Aires, Argentina on the tour. The set came in the following packages: 2DVD/2CD, 1 Blu-ray Disc/2CD, and 3 premium 180-gram vinyl LPs with MP3 file key. The set also included bonus footage, including a documentary shot by Copeland's son Jordan entitled Better Than Therapy.

The tour is a finalist for the Billboard 2008 Touring Awards for Top Tour and Top Draw. The 2008 portions came in fourth in Billboard's grosses rankings for that year.

Since the initial dissolution of the Police, Sting had adamantly refused to reunite with Copeland or Summers for any prolonged period, often commenting "If I ever reform the Police I should be certified insane." However, by 2007, he had a change of heart. When asked what prompted the reunion, Sting said "I'd just done the lute album — Songs from the Labyrinth. I was thinking: 'Well what do I do? What's going to surprise people?' I just had this instinct, this desire to call the guys up and say: 'Let's give this a go.'" Sting added that he saw the reunion as "a kind of healing. I think solving problems is an exercise worth doing".

The show

The first show was a preview concert held in Vancouver for 4000 members of The Police Fanclub on 27 May 2007, though the first official show was on 28 May 2007 in front of 22,000 fans at one of two nearly sold-out shows. Opening with "Message in a Bottle", the band performed for roughly two hours, playing mostly chart hits with a smattering of other favourites popular among fans of The Police.

While the Vancouver concerts received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, drummer Stewart Copeland, in a forum posting on his official site, called the band's 29 May performance "lame" and took humorous pokes at himself and his bandmates. He called one of Sting's song-ending leaps that of a "petulant pansy instead of the god of rock", joked the band botched the key changes so thoroughly they ended up playing "avant-garde twelve-tone hodgepodges" of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" and "Don't Stand So Close to Me", suggested that guitarist Andy Summers was "in Idaho" when he and Sting ended up half a bar out of sync with each other during opener "Message in a Bottle", and claimed he "made a hash" out of a fill he had worked out for in "Walking in Your Footsteps" by playing it in the wrong part of the song. In spite of these glitches, however, he said he was enjoying himself and after the set he and his bandmates fell into each other's arms backstage, laughing.

Stage design

The stage setup for The Police was a simple split-level oval design, ringed with blue lights. Above the stage were seven LED screens—three in the front of the stage, one on each side and two in the rear. The setup was not used during the show in The Woodlands on 20 May 2008 due to the smaller stage at the venue. In Marseille, France on 3 June 2008, the screens were used but not the split-level oval stage setup.

The placement of the band members echoed that of previous tours, with Sting and his bass equipment located stage-right, with Andy Summers and his guitar pedals and amps on stage-left. Stewart Copeland was located in the center rear. Behind him on a platform that could be raised and lowered, was a percussion setup consisting of various timpanis, hanging rotosounds, tuned percussion kits, and digital xylophone centered by a 60" gong used on various songs.

Musical changes

The Police had spent months in North Vancouver and Tuscany, Italy rehearsing and putting a new spin on the songs. "I think we've got a good mix now where the fans get the song they remember, and most of it will sound the way they remembered it. Just when they are enjoying that, they get a new twist. I think all three of us are pretty happy with the balance there" Stewart Copeland from the 2007–2008 Tour Program describing the new takes on the songs. They updated them, and wrote out all of the backing parts so the three of them can play them; though some backup instrumentals and vocals (either pre-recorded or performed by off-stage musicians) were used.

Tempos were slowed down for several songs, most notably "Don't Stand So Close to Me", which was slowed down to accent the powerful lyrics of the song. During "Wrapped Around Your Finger", "Walking In Your Footsteps" and "King of Pain", Stewart Copeland moved back and forth during the songs between his drumkit and the percussion setup on the elevated riser.

"The songs have to evolve. Twenty-odd years later we have to be better musicians than we were. So we've slowed it all down, looked at where we are, and how the songs are now happening by listening to ourselves play them", said Sting in the 2007–2008 tour programme.

Stewart Copeland was quoted as saying that he would "like to add 'Hole In My Life'" to the playlist at some point in the tour, and the song was performed live for the first time when the European tour kicked off in Stockholm on 29 August.

Set list

This set list is representative of the performance in Mountain View on 14 July 2008. It does not represent all concerts for the duration of the tour.

1. "Message in a Bottle"
2. "Walking on the Moon"
3. "Demolition Man"
4. "Voices in My Head" †
5. "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around"
6. "Don't Stand So Close to Me" †
7. "Driven to Tears"
8. "Hole in My Life" †
9. "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic"
10. "Wrapped Around Your Finger" †
11. "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da"
12. "Invisible Sun" †
13. "Can't Stand Losing You"/"Reggatta de Blanc"
14. "Roxanne"
15. "King of Pain"
16. "So Lonely" †
17. "Every Breath You Take"
18. "Next to You"

† – performed in a different key than original album version

Other songs played throughout the tour were "Synchronicity II" and "Walking In Your Footsteps" †. Other songs played in 2007 were "Truth Hits Everybody" †, "The Bed's Too Big Without You", "Spirits in the Material World" †, "Dead End Job" and "Murder by Numbers". All were replaced by "Bring On the Night" in 2008.

Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" and Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" were added for the final concert at 7 August 2008 at Madison Square Garden.