By James Stairs May 26, 2007, 4:03 GMT
Montreal - Twenty-four years after disintegrating in the wake of a high profile and acrimonious feud, the British-American rock group The Police will kick off one of the most anticipated rock and roll tours in recent history this weekend in Vancouver.
'Lock up your mothers,' joked Sting, the band's 55-year-old front- man, at the February press conference announcing the reunion. The tour marks 30 years since the band formed.
Sting, American drummer Stewart Copeland, 54, and 64-year-old guitarist Andy Summers formed the band in 1977 in London, turning heads with rock music that drew heavily on punk, jazz and reggae influences.
Six albums later and with a lengthy list of iconic songs in their repertoire including Roxanne, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic and Message in a Bottle, The Police have carved a reputation as one of the most successful acts in music history.
The band has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide, with 22.5 million records sold in the United States alone. That makes them one of North America's highest grossing groups of all time, outselling iconic home-grown acts like Johnny Cash and the Beach Boys.
The 29-city tour kicks off Sunday with the first of three sold-out gigs in Vancouver, where the band has held secret rehearsals for weeks. The first is a private concert for fan club members only, serving both as a reward and as a dry run for the main tour, which opens Monday.
The North American leg of the tour runs until August, then heads to Europe for September and October, then back to the US before heading to Mexico, South America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
Promoters estimate that 90 per cent of the announced shows are already sold out.
The band is also launching a greatest hits record to be released in early June, their first release since 1983's global hit Synchronicity, which cemented the band's massive appeal.
Any chance of a reunion seemed unlikely when the band broke up in 1984 after a series of internal disagreements and amidst swirling rumours of wild arguments and bruised egos.
On his own, Sting's solo career took off, making him one of the most well-known artists in the world with individual sales nearing those of the band.
It is estimated that his solo career, combined with The Police, has yielded nearly 100 million record sales.
The two other band members also threw themselves into individual projects after the split, with Copeland producing a documentary film about the band and Summers writing a biography about his years in The Police.
But rumours of a reunion tour began to swirl in January and an appearance at the 2007 Grammy Awards in Los Angeles confirmed them. The tour was announced on February 12.
'(The band is) a part of my life that I have sort of run away from for 25 years,' Sting said at the time, admitting he had spearheaded the reunion. 'But it's a very important part of my life.'
Both Sting and Copeland have since moved to dispel the seriousness of the famous feuds that ripped the band apart.
'We never hated each other,' Copeland said. 'We fought over the music but we always liked each other as people.'
Age has also mellowed the group, Sting added.
'We're wiser than we used to be,' he laughed. 'We still argue about the music but we have new ways of navigating through the disagreements.
'There's no reason why we can't be better than we were 25 years ago,' he said.
Fiction Plane, featuring Sting's 31-year-old son Joe Sumner, will open for the group throughout the tour.
A portion of the ticket sales for the tour are being donated to WaterAid, a Britain-based group that helps provide clean water resources to impoverished regions throughout the world.
The tour will also include a performance at the July 7th Live Earth concert in New York City.
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