Members of the five-time Grammy winner band The Police will come together this February to open the 49th Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the awards' organizer Recording Academy said in a statement on Tuesday.
The trio – frontman and singer Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland – are also likely to launch a world tour post-Grammies to commemorate 30 years of their hit
Roxanne, the first single they produced and followed up with other phenomenal hits like
Walking on the Moon,
Invisible Sun,
Message in a Bottle and
Every Breath You Take.
“The Police join a stellar list of past Grammy Awards opening acts, which includes reunions and once-in-a-lifetime performances,” the Recording Academy statement read. The impressive line-up of performances at this year's Grammies includes those by Beyonce Knowles, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mary J Blige, Joan Baez, Stevie Wonder, Carrie Underwood, John Mayer, Corinne Bailey Rae and John Legend, among several other big names.
One of the most popular bands in the world, The Police hit their pinnacle in the 1970s and 1980s. Though they never officially broke up, Sting proceeded to launch his solo career successfully after their
Synchronicity tour in 1984 and the band came together time and again for small-scale gigs, the last being in 2003 when The Police was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where they performed
Roxanne,
Message In a Bottle and
Every Breath You Take.
Media reports quoted sources as confirming that the trio was already practicing for the world tour in Lions Gate Studios in Vancouver, Canada. Earlier, The Police's record label A&M Records had said that the 30th anniversary of
Roxanne would be celebrated but had declined to elaborate on the celebrations. “It is our intention to mark the anniversary by doing something special with the band's catalog of songs. Needless to say, everyone is hopeful the band will support our plans and while early discussions have taken place, nothing has been decided,” the label had said.
If the band does launch a world tour, it is likely to be a successful one, given that frenzy that The Police has managed to whip up every time its members came together. The band, which won five Grammies during its illustrious career, figures at the 70th spot in the
Rolling Stone magazine's '100 Greatest Artists Of All Time' list.
Guitarist Andy Summers had last year, in an interview to
Billboard admitted that the band members had not handled their career too well and should have charted a better course in spite of the differences between them. “The more rational approach would have been, 'Okay, Sting, go make a solo record, and let's get back together in two or three years'. I'm certain we could have done that. We were definitely not in a creative dry space,” he had said. Summers also expressed regrets about not ending the band's association with a bang. “We never paid it off with a last tour. We snuck out the back door,” he had added.
Past mistakes notwithstanding, the band seems all set to come back. What better occasion than the Grammy Awards on February 11 to do so.
