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Sting reveals why The Police will never ever be reuniting again

16 May 2023, 10:27

By Thomas Curtis-Horsfall

The internal fighting which led to The Police's eventual break up was well-documented.

In 1984, the new wave trio were arguably the biggest band in the world, but would call it quits that year.

Throughout their seven-year career together as The Police , creative tensions between bassist and singer Sting , drummer Stewart Copeland , and guitarist Andy Summers would frequently boil over.

When they disagreed, not only did they have a difference of opinion, sometimes they'd even come to blows in physical altercations.

So once they'd reached the peak of their powers together as a band, all three members decided to go their separate ways.

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That was until their reunion in 2007 when they toured the world as The Police once again, in what became the third-highest-grossing tour of all time (at the time).

Not only was it a huge commercial success, their tour also courted enormous critical praise, leaving the door open for another potential coming together.

Steward Copeland recently revealed in his interview with Smooth Radio that despite "a lot of the tension" they shared, the trio are now back on good terms once again.

Sting has followed up with his own new interview in Music Week however, pouring cold water on rumours of a future reunion.

When asked if he thought bands should reunite ever, he laughed: "Once!" before going on to explain that bands "should do it once and the timing should be right."

"When the Police reunited, it had been long enough and it was the right time to do it. And I'm taking credit for that because that was my decision" Sting continued.

"Doing it again would just be gratuitous and that won't happen. But we did it, and everyone was happy that Mum and Dad got back together again and had one last fling."

The ' Fields Of Gold ' singer also agreed with Copeland's assessment of why tensions between the three bandmates opening reached explosive levels.

The Police Band Breakup

"It's an intense relationship. You start out in a band together and you live together; you sleep in the van together; you share hotel rooms. Your life is completely welded with the other guys in the band, and that's intense."

"We still love each other and respect each other, but I'm happy not to be in a band. I have much more freedom and when I have my own band, everyone's role is very clear. We just get on with the job."

"When a young band starts out, the roles are much more flexible and that creates tensions. But it's all-natural, of course...I think it gives you a competitive energy, a buzz."

Sting was also fairly candid about how his ego affected how the band began to perform together, and feels it right to stay as separate entities.

"There comes a point where it just gets in the way of the creative process and you're dealing with ego as opposed to actual musical ideas or the currency of musical ideas. When the flow stops, that's when a band has to break up."

Sting went on to confirm that he, Copeland and Summer hadn't considered writing more songs together, saying: "It was – what's the word – nostalgia, with recreating that thing for a short time. No, we didn’t even try."

Stewart Copeland seemed more positive about a full-scale reunion during his Smooth Radio interview however, saying: "Hey, look, I'm optimistic. I would give us at least a 1% chance."

"You know, we are enjoying each other's company. We get along really well. In fact, even when we were screaming at each other in the studio over dinner, we'd be laughing and joking. And we were deeply bonded."

"We went through a lot together, and we are like siblings, deeply bonded. And it's nice like this" Copeland told Smooth's very own Jenni Falconer .

"And I'm enjoying in fact, we have laughed amongst ourselves. We're in touch by email and so on. We send each other daft Instagram clips and so on."

At least the trio are back on good terms, but it doesn't look like they'll be hitting the road or the studio together any time soon.

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2007-2008 Reunion Tour

Between 2007-05-27 and 2008-08-07 , The Police took part in the 2007-2008 Reunion Tour .

• 1 Introduction
• 2.1 Touring musicians and band members
• 2.2 Road crew and technicians
• 2.3 Production crew
• 3 Charities supported
• 4 Corporate sponsorships
• 5 Support act(s)
• 6.1 Notable performances
• 6.2 Summary of tour dates
• 6.3 Canceled & rescheduled dates
• 7 Quotations and trivia
• 8 Tour passes
• 9 Tour itineraries
• 10 Tour posters
• 11 See also
• 12.1 The ever-changing finale
• 12.2 Finale ticketing shenanigans
• 12.3 Environmental concerns
• 13 External links
• 14 References

Introduction

A reunion tour for The Police had long been the hope and wish of many fans of the band since their last public performances together in 1986 . After many rumors and speculation about the possibility of concert appearances in 2007 , given the year would mark the band's 30th anniversary, the reunion tour was officially announced on 2007-02-12 during a world-wide live broadcast on television and the internet.

Rehearsals for the tour had begun in January of 2007 in Vancouver, Canada, and then resumed in March of 2007 at Sting 's studio at Il Palagio in Tuscany. Further rehearsals in Vancouver began in May of 2007 at the Squamish Indian reserve before the tour opened on 2007-05-27 with a Fan Club-only show.

Tour personnel

Touring musicians and band members.

• Stewart Copeland - drums, percussion
• Sting - bass guitar, vocals
• Andy Summers - guitars

Road crew and technicians

• Dan Dearnley - guitar tech
• Danny Quatrochi - guitar tech
• Jeff Seitz - drum tech
• Dennis Smith - guitar tech

Production crew

Charities supported, corporate sponsorships.

• Best Buy (North American tour sponsor, 2007 )
• Citibank (North American tour sponsor, 2008 )

Support act(s)

A number of different support acts were involved in the 2007-2008 Reunion Tour including

• The Charlatans
• Fergie ( 2008 Australia and New Zealand shows)
• Fiction Plane
• Elvis Costello & the Imposters
• The Fratellis
• James Morrison ( 2008-06-08 and 2008-06-10 )

Support acts that appeared for single concert events:

• Foo Fighters ( 2007-06-16 )
• Counting Crows ( 2008-06-26 )
• Maximo Park
• La Notte Della Taranta Ensemble ( 2007-10-02 )
• KT Tunstall ( 2008-06-20 )
• Scouting for Girls ( 2008-06-28 )
• Paolo Nutini ( 2008-07-02 )
• The B-52's ( 2008-08-07 )

Notable performances

Particularly notable dates on the 2007-2008 Reunion Tour included:

• 2007-05-27 - Fan Club Performance
• 2007-05-28 - Opening Night
• 2007-05-30 - "Disaster Gig"
• 2007-07-07 - Live Earth
• 2007-09-05 - Ranking Roger of The Beat performs part of " Roxanne " with The Police
• 2007-09-29 and 2007-09-30 - Henry Padovani performs " Next To You " with The Police
• 2008-02-17 - Fiction Plane 's final performance as opening band for The Police

Summary of tour dates

The 2007-2008 Reunion Tour took part in several legs, as summarized below:

Canceled & rescheduled dates

This section needs more information

Quotations and trivia

This section needs more information.

Tour passes

Tour itineraries, tour posters.

• 2007-2008 Reunion Tour musical gear (Stewart Copeland)
• 2007-2008 Reunion Tour musical gear (Sting)
• 2007-2008 Reunion Tour musical gear (Andy Summers)

Controversies and kerfluffles

The ever-changing finale.

• On 2008-02-13 , the dates for the tour's final swing through North America were announced on the Billboard and Fox News websites with "a more or less final date" (Fox News) set for Long Island’s Jones Beach on 2008-08-04 . Fans quickly began to make plans to attend the finale show and buy tickets as soon as they were made available. However, on 2008-03-04 , a second Jones Beach performance date was announced for 2008-08-05 , making this now the last scheduled date for the tour. [1] Many fans were very upset about this announcement, as they felt they had been tricked into buying tickets for the August 4 date on the expectation that it was the last show. Many ThePolice.com members had used their presale codes for the show on August 4, others had made travel arrangements already from other countries to be at the finale, and now felt that the band and/or the tour management had spoiled the end of the tour for them through their "greed". [2] , [3] , [4] In an interview published in the Sun Sentinel on 2008-04-30 , Stewart Copeland acknowledged the controversy surrounding the announcement of the second Jones Beach show. According to Copeland, "Inside the bubble we thought this was a great idea...We would never have guessed (the controversy) or intuited that without the Web." [5]
• On 2008-05-06 , The Police held a press conference in Times Square in New York City with Mayor Michael Bloomberg. They announced that they would be performing their "last concert ever", in the city of New York (date/location to be revealed later), and that it would be a benefit concert for local public broadcasting networks as well as the MillionTreesNYC project. [6] Fan reaction to the news was mixed, with many again expressing discontent that they had, for the second time, been lead to believe an earlier date would be the end of the tour. Concerns were expressed about the ability to resell tickets to the earlier "finale" shows now that a new finale was planned, as well as the difficulty of obtaining tickets to this new show or making extended/new travel plans. [7] , [8] , [9]

Finale ticketing shenanigans

• On 2008-06-05 , a month after the new finale concert was announced, the details were finally revealed on the final concert location, date and ticketing. It would take place on 2008-08-07 at Madison Square Garden . Tickets would be sold through a PBS pledge drive with prices beginning at $150/pair and going up to $5,000 a pair for VIP access. [10] It was later announced that ThePolice.com , Citicard (the corporate sponsor of this leg of the tour), and PBS would all be having presales for their members. Only pairs of tickets could be bought through any of the sales, no singles would be made available. Many fans worked hard through the various presales beginning on 2008-06-09 to get tickets close to and behind the stage (an area known to Stewart Copeland fans as "Stew Heaven" and a particular favorite for drummer aficionados.) There was general disappointment among many members of ThePolice.com who found their presale seats, even at the Legacy membership level, inferior to the PBS presale ones, and no better (and sometimes worse) than the Citicard ones. [11] , [12] , [13]
• On 2008-06-20 , fans reported checking their ticket orders and seeing that their ticket assignments had been changed without their knowledge to much inferior seats within the same price bracket. Even the date of their ticket purchases had been changed from 2008-06-09 and after to 2008-06-18 . All behind-the-stage seats were relocated to the upper 300 level, and some seated on the upper 300 levels were changed to the even higher 400 levels. Fans were completely outraged by this change, which meant that many of the biggest fans of the band who had worked hardest to get good seats were now stuck with some of the worst. Appeals were quickly made to Police HQ at ThePolice.com , Ticketmaster, and Stewart Copeland himself as he is generally perceived as the most fan-responsive member of the band. [14] , [15] , [16] , [17] , [18] To date there has been no official acknowledgement of the fan upset over this ticketing change, and the only options offered by Ticketmaster to correct this were refunds or an option to upgrade tickets at an increased price - but those who chose to upgrade would not know their exact seating assignment. There was continued disappointment and confusion after it was discovered in the first week of July that single tickets were now being sold via the Ticketmaster website, again often in better seating areas than had been available earlier and in the presales when single tickets were not allowed. [19]

Environmental concerns

• In January of 2008 , The Police were singled out by environmentalists for the environmental impact of their global tour and named "the dirtiest band in the world". John Buckly, an environmental adviser from www.carbonfootprint.com, stated "At the Live Earth concert in New Jersey where The Police played, the biggest contribution to carbon emissions wasn't from the concert itself, it was the fans...The Police played lots of big stadiums - they need to be careful over where they play, and make sure it's near public transport." Sting in particular was singled out and called a "hypocrite" in the press for being a vocal supporter of green causes while seemingly not backing his words with appropriate action. [20] , [21]
• The criticism would continue into the summer of 2008 over incidents such as Sting taking private jets by himself. [22] , [23]

External links

• The Columbus Dispatch: Band's hits have become mileposts in fans' lives
• Donal Hodgson interview about tour equipment
• The Police Live: North America 2007 . Smart Art Itineraries. Venice, CA. 2007.
• "10.01.07 News" ThePolice.com. UltraStar Entertainment LLC. 14 Apr. 2008.< http://www.thepolice.com/news/news.php?uid=5475 >
• "03.04.08 News" ThePolice.com. UltraStar Entertainment LLC. 14 Apr. 2008. < http://www.thepolice.com/news/news.php?uid=5668 >
• "03.27.08 News" ThePolice.com. UltraStar Entertainment LLC. 14 Apr. 2008. < http://www.thepolice.com/news/news.php?uid=5673 >
• "05.06.08 Mayor Bloomberg and The Police announce contribution to MillionTreesNYC and reveal that their last ever concert will take place in New York City to benefit local public televisions stations..." ThePolice.com. Ultrastar Entertainment LLC. 3 Jul. 2008. < http://www.thepolice.com/news/news.php?uid=5695 >
• "2nd Jones Beach date added!!" policefans.org. 4 Mar. 2008. 3 Jul. 2008 < http://www.policefans.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=424 >
• "and the special announcement on Tuesday is...." stewartcopeland.net. 4 May 2008. 3 Jul. 2008. < http://www.stewartcopeland.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6865&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 >
• "Another Jones Beach Show !!!!" stewartcopeland.net. 4 Mar. 2008. 3 Jul. 2008 < http://www.stewartcopeland.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6288&highlight=jones+beach >
• "Eco campaigner Sting flies solo on private jet - twice in one day." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers Ltd. 30 Jun, 2008. 3 Jul. 2008 < http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1030594/Eco-campaigner-Sting-flies-solo-private-jet--twice-day.html >
• "Hypocrite: Eco-warrior Sting and the Police top list of bands with worst carbon footprint." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers Ltd. Jan. 8 2008. 3 Jul 2008 < http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-506906/Hypocrite-Eco-warrior-Sting-Police-list-bands-worst-carbon-footprint.html >
• "Pete beats sting in greenest bands survey." Metro.co.uk. Associated Newspapers Limited. 8 Jan. 2008. 3 Jul. 2008 < http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/article.html?in_article_id=82886&in_page_id=7&in_a_source= >
• "POLICE PRESS RELEASE." ThePolice.com. Ultrastar Entertainment LLC. 6 May 2008. 3 Jul. 2008 < http://www.thepolice.com/members/community/mboard/index.php?topic=10041.0 >
• "Stewart Copeland of the band Police talks about the Internet and touring." Sun-Sentinel.com. 30 Apr. 2008. 3 Jul. 2008. < http://www.sun-sentinel.com/entertainment/sfl-0430copeland,0,964818.story >
• "Sting: More Police Tour, Plus Elvis Costello." FOXNews.com. 13 Feb. 2008. FOX News Network, LLC. 3 Jul. 2008. < http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330533,00.html#2 >
• "Summer Run To Be The Police's Final Tour." Billboard.com. 13 Feb. 2008. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 3 Jul. 2008. < http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003710234 >
• ThePolice.com. UltraStar Entertainment LLC. 13 Apr. 2008. < https://tickets.thepolice.com/index.php?location=na >
• "The Police in NYC 5-6-08." stewartcopeland.net. 5 May 2008. 3 Jul. 2008. < http://www.stewartcopeland.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6876 >
• "WHEN Finale #2 added, then. . ." stewartcopeland.net. 25 Feb. 2008. < http://www.stewartcopeland.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6183&highlight=jones+beach >
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Stewart Copeland bonus Q&A: There’s ‘a 3 percent chance The Police will reunite. We drive each other crazy!’

What did this Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee learn in his early days as a roadie for Wishbone Ash and tour manager for Joan Armatrading? Quite a lot!

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Former Police drummer Stewart Copeland is understandably excited about this Friday’s world premiere of his “Police Deranged for Orchestra.” The concert will see him perform with the San Diego Symphony and some handpicked rock-music veterans at the symphony’s $85 million new venue, Rady Shell at Jacobs Park.

Copeland discusses his new orchestral work and his time as a college student in San Diego in a separate interview in today’s Union-Tribune .

Stewart Copeland eager to reinvent The Police’s music at world premiere of ‘Police Deranged for Orchestra’

The concert, a prelude to a national 2021/2022 tour, will feature the San Diego Symphony, Paul McCartney’s lead guitarist, three singers and more

Aug. 22, 2021

To do justice to the ever-quotable musician, here is a bonus Q&A from our recent Zoom conversation. He spoke from his longtime Los Angeles home.

Q: You’ll be performing a bunch of Police songs on your “Police Deranged for Orchestra” tour. The Police broke up in 1984, did a reunion tour in 2007 and 2008, and that was it for you, Sting and Andy Summers. What are the chances of another Police reunion?

A: I’m an eternal optimist: I’d give it a 3 percent chance.

Q: Only 3 percent?

A: (laughs) Yeah, not very high. There’s no reason not to, but at moment we’re having a great time dong what we’re doing (individually). And The Police is not easy for us. We get the thrill with the power of those songs, but they pick up emotional baggage with the passing of time.

On our reunion tour, the most amazing thing was the emotion coming from the audience. But getting to that place in rehearsals was difficult. We weren’t the same players we were (in the 1970s and ‘80s). We’re not as co-dependent as we were before, and we developed different musical lives, so music has different purposes for us now.

We get along fine socially, but musically we drive each other a little crazy. When we are on stage and we are validated by the audience, then it’s like: “Okay, okay, okay. This is good.” But in rehearsal, we drive each other crazy!

Q: A few years ago I interviewed Stanley Clarke for a Jazz Times cover story. He told me about a Return To Forever tour of the U.S. that took place around 1973 or ’74 and included Joan Armatrading as the opening act. Stanley recalled that you were Joan’s tour manager and that you asked (Return To Forever drummer) Lenny White if you could play his drums each day, after Return To Forever’s soundcheck was over. Lenny cautiously agreed.

A: (Laughs) Lenny told me: “Yes, as long as you don’t use the (bass) drum pedal and cymbals.” It was like: “You can borrow my car, but I won’t give you the keys!” Years later I met Lenny again, and told him about that. And he said: “You’re that guy!” Apparently, that was a favorite anecdote for Return To Forever.

Q: Joan Armatrading wasn’t your only tour managing gig, was it?

A: I tour managed for Joan, Renaissance and Curved Air before I became the band’s drummer. But the Lenny story is pre-Curved Air. I did that tour for three months across America, ending up in San Francisco. She went back to England and I went to UC Berkeley; I was still in college. After leaving Berkeley and before I joined Curved Air, I was a roadie for Wishbone Ash , Climax Blues Band and Curved Air before I joined it.

So, basically, I’m a glorified roadie!

Q: Did your background as a tour manager and roadie help you in the early days of The Police?

A: Absolutely, particularly in 1976 and ’77 when all those English punk bands were genuinely punk. They would get booked to play at Rebecca’s (nightclub) in Birmingham, but had no idea how to get there! As a result, The Police would get a lot of cancelation gigs filling in for other bands. I knew how to get a truck and I knew how to get our band to a gig. There were only three of us.

The other secret sauce was what I learned at UC Berkeley. The music I learned in San Diego became very useful later in my life. But at Berkeley, I couldn’t get in the music department. So I studied public policy and learned how the media works and how to manipulate the zeitgeist. That was very helpful for The Police!

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Sting Wanted More Than 'Nostalgia' Out Of The Police Reunion

By Andrew Magnotta @AndrewMagnotta

March 22, 2021

Sting says he wouldn't have taken part in the 2007-08 reunion tour with The Police if he knew that all he'd get out of it would be nostalgia.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer admitted that he more or less got what he expected, but 15 months of looking back on the good ol' days with bandmates Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers left him unfulfilled.

“At the time I labelled the tour an exercise in nostalgia," he told Reader's Digest . "That was simply how I felt and is still how I feel today. I think it’s OK to be honest about your feelings and that was the way it went for me."

He continued: "That's not a slight on the people I was with or the way things panned out, it’s just how I saw it by the end, and let’s be honest, that’s not how I wanted to remember it.

“If I thought that would be the emotion I’d be leaving with, I wouldn’t have done it in the first place.”

Speaking of his solo career, Sting elaborated on his philosophy as an artist. He says he revels in the "total freedom" of being a solo act, where he can make "exactly the brand and style of music that feels right."

“Music, in every form, is a collaborative process, but never more so than in a band, where you have to consider other people almost more than you do yourself," he said. “To have total career freedom is, for me, the ultimate thrill of being a solo artist.”

Copeland and Summers have also released a wealth of solo work in the years since the Police's initial breakup. The trio remain in touch, though there's little interest in another go-around as a band.

Copeland noted in 2019 that the three are happier together as friends than as bandmates.

"We know that when we go into that rehearsal room together we're going to start screaming at each other again, and I'd rather laugh," he said."

Photo: Getty Images

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The Police's Stewart Copeland: 'Reunion tour made us more money than in our entire career'

S tewart Copeland, 70, is a musician and composer who found fame in 1978 as founder and drummer of The Police, the multi-million-record-selling rock band. 

The band achieved five consecutive Number 1 albums and 10 Top 10 singles, including five Number 1s. His composing work has included the film  Wall Street  and TV series  The Equalizer . He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Fiona.

Did your childhood influence your attitude to money?

My family lived a very wealthy lifestyle despite a meagre diplomat’s pay, because we lived in what was then called the Third World. 

I was born in America and moved, aged two months, to Cairo and later Beirut. I was 14 when my father had to evacuate his family back to London and a tiny apartment. 

I didn’t know which words were English or Arabic and adjusted to not being able to cross the street anywhere you want. I grew up in St John’s Wood where my parents bought a house, but his pay didn’t extend as far. 

He did the same job for American oil companies but there was always underlying anxiety about where the next cheque would come from. I went to Millfield public school in Somerset on a bit of a scholarship. 

What were your first jobs?

Banging s*** in bands in Beirut and London, but I didn’t get paid till I was much older. At 17 I worked in a record store in Kensington. Then at college in California I sold advertising for a university magazine. That was me: the cold sell. Walk into a store: “Hello, are you the manager?”

Are you a saver or a spender?

Saver. Sting and I got a reputation as a hot rhythm section, which paid the bills. One day we met Andy Summers who was doing somebody else’s session. The first years of The Police, when we were starving, I lived off what I’d saved from (previous band) Curved Air, using some for The Police to hire a PA or truck for gigs, and paying myself back out of that.

Do you use cash or cards? 

Cash. Musicians live hand-to-mouth. In 1978 my Barclays bank manager wouldn’t give me an advance even though I’d been banking there since I was 17. I had turned up with a cheque in Deutschmarks while getting evicted and needing that money to pay my rent.

It was for a tour in Germany, but to him I was just a scruffy musician. I tried to explain my cash economy and that I did have small transactions going through, but he said no and I got evicted. My next bank was Coutts who helped me buy my first house.

Were you squatting at first?

We called it a squat but it was a fancy two-storey Mayfair apartment. My father had a socialite friend living in it who’d taken in paying guests; but they wouldn’t leave when she wanted to return to New York. So my father had a great idea, suggesting my brother Ian and I move in, which we did. 

Ian started throwing wild parties and soon the other folks left, except for Lady Georgina Campbell who wouldn’t budge. The wilder Ian’s parties got he’d still wake up and see she’d left him a glass of water and an aspirin. 

They eventually got us out and I moved to a bedsit in Fulham where I had to pay for rent and every hour of band rehearsal. By then we were getting work as a rhythm section, and I was writing articles for  Sounds  magazine, reviewing equipment. Money was trickling in.

Were you tempted to give up?

Bands tend to be optimistic. As I was getting slung out of one apartment – I lived in nine places in London – and loading up my VW Beetle to head to another basement to crash I heard my mini hit ( Don’t Care  by Klark Kent) [No 49 in 1978] on the radio. 

Although that was at the bottom I ended up on  Top of the Pops  and The Police were right behind it, starting the journey to the top.

Have you invested in property?

Yes.  There was the obligatory first rock star’s estate in the country where I got a beautiful estate with a polo field at the end of the garden. By then I was working mostly for Hollywood doing film score work and bought a pied-à-terre in LA, selling the Buckinghamshire place. 

None are commercial properties: we buy houses with a view to flipping them. Now we live in one house and have a retirement house in Montecito, California, where Meghan and Harry live. 

Do you invest in the stock market?

Yes. My wife’s getting more clever at it. We’re long term, very conservative.

Your best and worst financial decisions?

Worst, real estate. If  I’m  buying, you know the housing market’s about to crash! We’ve done better since Fiona took over. I spend money building a studio with triple windows and heavy doors, but when I sell it they say, “What kind of Granny flat is this?” Best, marrying Fiona.

Have you done lucrative TV commercials?

Yes. A Wrigley’s commercial was the birth of The Police blond look. Sting was to be a wild rock star but they needed a band. Sting said, “I’ve got a band.” 

Andy and I showed up and to make us look wilder they peroxided and spiked up our hair. We thought, “This is cool.” They paid us £50 each which kept us going for a month.

Your fee rose later?

Oh yes. I did music for jingles (Hyundai, insurance) with a buddy who ran a jingles house. As a film composer, advertising music is the sweet spot: the highest paid for the least music. 

I did three Mountain Dew ads that ran during the Super Bowl that year: they paid six figures for 60 seconds. 

The most I ever got paid was for the BlackBerry. They wanted just five notes, an earworm as the phone’s theme. Each of those notes I was paid for would have put my kid through private school for a year. 

Do you have valuable equipment?

Don’t tell the taxman but when I was going back and forth to college in America to my family home in London I’d buy a guitar in America, sell it on Shaftesbury Avenue for twice the price, go back to America and so on. 

I ended up buying a 1968 Gibson Standard SG now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I paid £125 for it in 1972. 

Your most lucrative soundtrack?

For  Wall Street  in 1987 I was paid six figures. For my first film for Francis Coppola I played all the instruments myself. When he said, “We need strings!” I had to hire a string section. 

But doing it at home we had those big budgets to spend on ourselves. One day the studios cottoned on: million-dollar composers were fighting off $200,000 composers, and the gig goes to the $20,000 kid with a laptop. 

What was your most lucrative tour? 

The Reunion Tour in 2007 probably grossed more than the entire income of The Police until then.

When we played at the Shea Stadium in New York to 60,000 people back in the day tickets were $17. Playing to 80,000 at the Stade de France tickets were now $300. I think it was the third highest grossing tour in history [revenue over $360 million (£284 million)]. 

That’s why I can afford to write opera now, where it’s all about art and the business model is to lose money!

The best and worst things you’ve bought?

Best, my horse box. It had a clubhouse, balcony; I could take eight horses to games around England. It was a hang as well as transport. 

Worst, a Hillman Minx car I bought in 1977 for £25 which a day later got trashed on Hammersmith Road. 

An articulated lorry overtook me and squished it into the ground. And as I’m looking at it the cops pull up and give me a ticket for bald tyres.

Stewart Copeland’s  Police Deranged for Orchestra  album is out on June 23. His  Police Diaries 1976-9  to be released in October. Pre-order at  policediariesbook.com

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The Police’s Reunion Tour Opens in Vancouver.

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 and 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.

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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.

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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.

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Sting: The Police reunion was just an exercise in nostalgia

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Sting regrets The Police’s reunion. The 69-year-old singer reunited with bandmates Andy Summers and Stuart Copeland in 2007, 19 years after they split, and then embarked on a global tour in 2008 but the ‘Every Breath You Take’ hitmaker admitted the experience didn’t leave him feeling the way he’d hoped it would. In an interview with Reader's Digest magazine, he said: “At the time I labelled the tour an exercise in nostalgia. That was simply how I felt and is still how I feel today. “I think it’s OK to be honest about your feelings and that was the way it went for me. “That’s not a slight on the people I was with or the way things panned out, it’s just how I saw it by the end, and let’s be honest, that’s not how I wanted to remember it. “If I thought that would be the emotion I’d be leaving with, I wouldn’t have done it in the first place.” Sting loves working as a solo artist because of the “total freedom” it offers. He said: “I think there is a freedom in being a solo artist. “It’s not a power thing, at all, it’s just about producing exactly the brand and style of music that feels right for you. “Music, in every form, is a collaborative process, but never more so than in a band, where you have to consider other people almost more than you do yourself. “To have total career freedom is, for me, the ultimate thrill of being a solo artist.” The ‘Fields of Gold’ singer thinks it’s “great fun” to have a hit record, but he isn’t motivated by chart success. He said: “It’s great fun to have a hit record, it really is, but it’s not why I make records and it never has been, to be honest. “It’s easy to get swept along in the excitement of the charts – a lot more so in the eighties than it is today – but the truth is I make records out of love and curiosity, even if it’s always nice to have something on the radio.”

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Sting Regrets Emotion of Police Reunion Tour

Sting says he wouldn't have taken part in the Police reunion tour of 2007 and 2008 if he’d known how he was going to feel at the end.

The road trip with Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland was well-received and became one of the highest-grossing tours of the time. But the frontman recently told Reader’s Digest (via MusicNews.com ) that he hadn’t predicted how it would finish up.

“At the time I labelled the tour an exercise in nostalgia,” Sting said. “That was simply how I felt and is still how I feel today. I think it’s OK to be honest about your feelings and that was the way it went for me.” He added: “That’s not a slight on the people I was with or the way things panned out, it’s just how I saw it by the end, and let’s be honest, that’s not how I wanted to remember it. If I thought that would be the emotion I’d be leaving with, I wouldn’t have done it in the first place.”

He said he preferred the freedom of being a solo artist, continuing: “It’s not a power thing at all, it’s just about producing exactly the brand and style of music that feels right for you. Music, in every form, is a collaborative process, but never more so than in a band, where you have to consider other people almost more than you do yourself.”

In 2019 drummer Copeland said that, while he and his bandmates had enjoyed the tour, no one felt the need to regroup for another. “Right now it's just so great to hang with my buddies, who are like brothers, without clouding it with the issue," he explained. "The issue is that although we're very proud of the music we made and very proud of the impact of the band, it was very difficult. The music each of us makes in our own world now is very wonderful and rewarding. We know that when we go in that rehearsal room together we're going to start screaming at each other again, and I'd rather laugh.”

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EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WFIE) - A 14 News reunion took place Saturday, with some of our past on-air and behind the scenes team coming together.

Before getting together, they took a tour of our station to see how things have changed.

Some of the former team members at the reunion included former anchors Dan Katz and David James.

Current employees like anchors Randy Moore and Mike Blake were also in attendance.

They shared some pictures of their night of catching up.

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New York Undercover Cast Set to Reunite for National Tour in Honor of Show’s 30th Anniversary (Exclusive)

The beloved police procedural, starring Malik Yoba, Luna Lauren Velez and Michael DeLorenzo, aired on Fox from 1994 to 1999

The cast of New York Undercover is hitting the road!

In PEOPLE's exclusive look at the Monday, April 29 episode of Tamron Hall , Malik Yoba, Luna Lauren Velez and Michael DeLorenzo reveal that the cast of the police drama will be embarking on a tour across the United States in celebration of the show's 30th anniversary.

"We're here not just to talk about the 30-year anniversary, but how we can bring this moment forward," Yoba, 56, explains. "Audiences has never had a chance to have this experience with us so we intend to go on the road as [a] cast."

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After host Tamron Hall and the audience react with shock, Yoba shares "another iconic" reveal.

"We're going to hit markets across America. We're working with artists that have performed on the show," he continues as the crowd cheers.

New York Undercover aired from Fox from 1994 to 1999. The iconic police procedural followed the story of two undercover detectives, J.C. Williams (Yoba) and Eddie Torres (DeLorenzo). The series included a diverse cast and was one of the first procedurals to cast BIPOC actors in leading roles. It also told realistic storylines that tackles issues from parenting to racism, sexism and drug abuse.

In 2018, Deadline reported that ABC had ordered a pilot for a New York Undercover reboot series.

At the time, the outlet reported that the new series would pick up 20 years after the original show's end. The reboot was to follow detectives Nat Gilmore and Melissa Ortiz and their investigations into the Big Apple's most dangerous criminals from Harlem to Battery Park. Some original cast members were expected to reprise their roles.

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The reboot was to be written and executive produced by Dick Wolf, co-creator of the original series, and Ben Watkins.

However, the network scrapped its plans for the revival. Though New York Undercover 's return to television looks unlikely, Deadline reported that the reboot was getting pitched to other networks in 2020.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Tamron Hall airs on Monday, April 29 (nationally syndicated, check local listings).

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Kellie Pickler Returns to the Stage for First Time Since Husband Kyle Jacob's Death

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It was an emotional evening for Kellie Pickler. On Monday night, the 37-year-old country singer took to the stage at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, marking the first time she had returned to live singing since the tragic death of her husband, Kyle Jacobs, in February 2023. 

As a part of the Walkin' After Midnight: The Music of Patsy Cline tribute show, Pickler sang the song "The Woman I Am," a song she co-wrote with Jacobs. 

"I'd be lying if I didn't say I was not incredibly nervous right now. It's the first time I've been up on stage in a while," Pickler admitted to the supportive crowd. "My husband and I actually wrote this song together over a decade ago. The last time I was here in the Ryman Auditorium was with him on a date night and I know he is here with us tonight."

Assuring the crowd that she was "gonna do the best I can," Pickler smiled before belting out the powerful ballad. Though visibly emotional, Pickler didn't miss a note, earning herself a standing ovation after the performance. 

On Feb. 17, 2023, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department told ET that  Jacobs was found dead  at the couple's home in Nashville. He was 49. 

Police told ET that, after being called to the home, they discovered Jacobs "deceased from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in an upstairs bedroom/office." Police added that "his death is being investigated as an apparent suicide."

"Mr. Jacobs' wife, Kellie Pickler, reported that she awoke a short time earlier, did not see her husband, and began looking for him," police said. "After she and her personal assistant were unable to open the door to the upstairs bedroom/office, the assistant telephoned 911."

Six months after Jacobs' death, Pickler released a statement to People , breaking her silence on the loss. 

"One of the most beautiful lessons my husband taught me was in a moment of a crisis, if you don't know what to do, 'do nothing, just be still,'" Pickler said at the time. "I have chosen to heed his advice."

"Thank you to my family, friends, and supporters, for the countless letters, calls, and messages that you have sent my way," Pickler's statement continued. "It has truly touched my soul and it's helping me get through the darkest time in my life. As many of you have told me, you are all in my prayers."

Pickler, an  American Idol  alum, and Jacobs tied the knot in 2011, and co-starred on  I Love Kellie Pickler  from 2015 to 2017. In addition, Jacobs was a songwriter, having penned tracks for stars including Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw and Kelly Clarkson.

If you or anyone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.

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