The Police Quit Their Day Job

Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland call it a career Thursday night at Madison Square Garden

By Natalie Finn Aug 08, 2008 5:43 AMTags
DISCLAIMER: This video was taken of the Police playing Madison Square Garden last year. But it's still probably pretty close to what their rendition of "Roxanne" sounded like tonight at MSG in what was hailed as the band's last live performance...ever.

Whether Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland really are ready to call it a career or not, they can return to their separate corners for now knowing they played one hell of a 151-show reunion tour. (Plus they've got $358.8 million, minus costs, to split among them, having just put on the third-highest-grossing tour of all time.)

They had planned for awhile to close things out in New York, the scene of the original crime—their first U.S. gig nearly 30 years ago at the recently deceased punk-rock club CBGB.

"It's been a huge honor to get back with my good friends," Sting, who at one point was shown backstage via video screen getting a shave and a mani-pedi, told the audience tonight. "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."

Among the time-tested hits—"Roxanne," "Every Breath You Take," "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," "So Lonely"—were a few surprises, including covers of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love," which opened the show, and Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze," which the Police saved for an encore.

They also had the actual New York City Police Department Band accompany them on "Message in a Bottle," a collaboration that merited the loudest applause of the night.

Finally, they capped it all (in the truest sense of the word) off with the fierce "Next to You," after which Sting, Copeland and Summers—who started jamming together in 1977 and first broke up in 1984—hugged, bowed and trotted off the stage.

The Looney Tunes' "That's All Folks!" theme accompanied their exit.