After 150 shows spread out over five continents, the Police wrapped up their blockbuster 15-month reunion tour on August 7th with a bang: a freewheeling, occasionally silly two-hour show at New York's Madison Square Garden that was billed as the band's final performance ever. "It's been difficult, but we've actually navigated this thing together as mature males, and we've had a lot of fun doing it," Sting told Rolling Stone the day before the concert. "That's been the major success."

In the course of their trek, the Police sold 3.7 million tickets and grossed $358 million, making it the third-highest-grossing tour of all time. But the final show was a benefit for two New York public-television stations.

Celebrating the culmination of the Police's first tour in 20 years, their Garden party was full of surprises — in a nod to two other famous trios, they opened with a cover of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" and later played the Jimi Hendrix Experience's "Purple Haze." Early in the night, they were joined by the New York Police Department marching band for "Message in a Bottle," and during "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," Sting's daughters Coco, Mickey and Kate ran onstage to dance alongside their dad. As per tradition, there were some final-night pranks. Prior to the encore, a bizarre scene played out on the Garden's giant video screens: Sting relaxed in a barber chair backstage while two women shaved off his beard. And after the final song, the stage crew ushered out the proverbial fat lady — a roadie in drag — as the Looney Tunes "That's all, folks" theme blasted from the speakers.

Looking back on the long tour, each member of the trio agrees that their chemistry was lacking at the outset. "At the beginning, we were crap," says drummer Stewart Copeland. "Each one of us had our own opinion of what was wrong, which could be summed up as 'the other two guys.' " But at a certain point, the band developed a sense of humor about its 30-year-long animosities. After a screaming argument in Australia, Sting ended the fight by mooning Copeland from a moving car. "At that moment, I realized that I had no further argument," says Copeland. "I was defeated by Sting's superior logic!" During the show, Sting announced, "The real triumph of this tour is that we haven't strangled each other. That doesn't mean it hadn't crossed my mind — or Andy's or Stewart's."

But at the Garden, the trio were a perfectly harmonious unit. They locked into a rock-steady groove for "Walking on the Moon," were bathed in red light for "Roxanne," and said goodbye with "So Lonely," "Every Breath You Take" and an extended run through "Next to You." "[The tour] is like a drug: It's very hard to give up," guitarist Andy Summers says. "It's a poignant end. There's a sadness that accompanies it."

Sting is less conflicted. "It's important to have closure, as the Americans say," he says. "Now I have that wonderfully liberating feeling of not having a fucking clue what I'm doing next."

[From Issue 1060 — September 4, 2008]

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