awing screams and cheers from a bedazzled Vancouver crowd. The performance in the western Canadian city launched the rock band's 30th-anniversary global tour, and was a much-awaited reunion for British frontman Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland.
"Hello Vancouver!" Sting called out to the around 20,000 fans in General Motors Place, who responded with deafening screams.
"We chose Vancouver because you're Vancouver," Sting said cryptically.
Shouting over hollering and clapping, he thanked the Squamish aboriginal band for letting Police practice for the previous three weeks in its longhouse, a traditional cultural center.
Sting's short greeting and thank-you were almost the only breaks in more than two hours of non-stop music that evoked the raw energy that made Police a rock icon of the 1970s and 80s.
With a packed arena of thousands of fans mouthing or singing the familiar words, Police ran through its repertoire of hits from the opening tune of "Message in a Bottle" to "Roxanne" and "Don't Stand So Close To Me," wrapping up its second and final encore with "Every Breath you Take."
Fans in the audience stood and swayed through most of the concert, clapping along with their arms raised in a mass of humanity representing at least two generations, with middle-aged adults being accompanied by their young-adult children.
"I grew up listening to Sting," said a young woman who gave her name only as Ashley, standing beside an older woman and holding a bag from a fan shop.
She paid 40 dollars for a Police T-shirt because "this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me, and I want to remember it."
The concert was nearly sold out, although scalpers and wholesale brokers discounted the price of tickets they bought for about 100 dollars to as low as 30 dollars on the street, just minutes before the concert.
When Police announced its reunion tour last February in Los Angeles, Sting had promised the concerts would be stripped to the basics. "It's going to be three guys on stage, that's all," he said.
"The show is going to be simple but spectacular," he told reporters at the time.
The raised stage was surrounded on all sides by the audience. Doing without accessories such as jumbo-tron screens, the trio performed under a kaleidoscope of intricately choreographed lighting that bathed the arena in a multi-colored glow.
Sting was dressed simply for most of the concert in black boots, black pants and a sleeveless white muscle shirt that showed his well-toned biceps, adding a black jacket for the last few songs.
Summers, dressed in a buttoned shirt and simple pants, mostly let his guitar take the limelight.
It was Copeland who glittered at center stage, switching back and forth between two gleaming and elaborate drum ensembles as he beat away with manic energy.
After two hours of intense performance, the oft-rivalrous Sting, Summers and Copeland took their bows, hugged each other and Sting blew kisses to the audience.
Police's second concert of the tour will take place Wednesday, also in Vancouver. The band then continues on throughout North and South America, Europe and Australia before wrapping up its tour early next year.
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