The Police roll into town — without their baggage

When guitarist Andy Summers came through Seattle last October for a lecture at Experience Music Project, he wanted to talk about his recent autobiography, his many solo albums and his surprising friendship with Jimi Hendrix. He was less interested in talking about his tenure with the Police.

But as the audience peppered him with questions, he let out a secret that is still reverberating: The Police were talking again. Considering the legendary animosity among the trio, that was breaking news.

"There's something in the wind," Summers said with a smile.

A few short weeks later, Summers, drummer Stewart Copeland and bassist Sting were in rehearsals. The band reunited for a brief appearance at February's Grammy Awards, and then announced a massive worldwide reunion tour that began Sunday in Vancouver, B.C., and stops this week in Seattle for shows Wednesday and Thursday at KeyArena.

The reunion has turned into the most anticipated rock tour of the summer, and with list price of tickets topping $250 in some markets, it is certainly the most lucrative. Still, Summers' remarks hinted that there's more than money behind the band reuniting.

"We were the biggest band in the world when we broke up," Summers said that day. "I still think we had more to say."

It was tension during the band's last tour — almost 25 years ago — that led to the Police's breakup. They initially called it "a sabbatical," but other than a brief reunion at an Amnesty International benefit — and playing Sting's wedding — the Police ceased to exist. But the legendary bickering fueled plenty of media attention.

Copeland's documentary film on the band, "Everybody Stares: The Police Inside Out," played last year's Seattle International Film Festival. Despite the positive reviews, the highlight was the curses written on Copeland's drum kit on the band's 1983 tour. Though Copeland now says the message reflected his general disgust with touring, it is hard to believe the remarks weren't directed toward Sting.

Another reason a reunion seemed unlikely was Sting's track record as a successful solo artist — which more than anything led to the initial dissolution of the band. The Police were a trio of equals, and that equality was a key to their success. Copeland and Sting originally formed the band in England in 1977 (giving this tour its 30th-anniversary billing); Summers joined soon thereafter.

Yet as Summers recounts in his 2006 memoir "One Train Later" — the book he was touring for last fall — it wasn't until the Police dyed their hair blond for a chewing-gum commercial and released the hit "Roxanne" in America that they broke out of the British punk scene. Their early Seattle shows brought them to the Paramount and the Showbox, but as the '80s began they moved to the Tacoma Dome behind huge radio hits "Don't Stand So Close to Me," "Every Breath You Take" and "King of Pain."

Fans who shell out several hundreds of dollars for tickets can at least go with the knowledge that the always-populist band plans on delivering those hits.

"It's all new music we'll be playing," Copeland told the New York Post last week, "but not new songs. We're not ready for new songs, we don't even deserve new songs yet."

It is still unclear if the band will include any of Sting's solo material in their sets, but the Sting family does get some extra stage time in the form of the opening band Fiction Plane. Sting's 21-year-old son, Joe Sumner, leads the group, and it's good enough that they don't necessarily need Dad's endorsement.

Seattle-area music writer Charles R. Cross is the author of five books. Contact him at charlesrcross@aol.com.