The Police begin world tour

Reunited rock group The Police began a five-month world tour in front of 20,000 fans in Vancouver on Monday, 21 years after their last major concert.

Singer Sting, drummer Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers drifted apart in the mid-1980s but have been rehearsing together since March. "I'd like to introduce the band. Andy, this is Stewart," Sting joked to the crowd, including actress Penelope Cruz.

They arrive in the UK on 4 September, playing in Birmingham. The release of a 30-track greatest hits album - available globally in the week of 11 June - has also been confirmed.

Many of those classic singles - including Message in a Bottle, Roxanne and Spirits In The Material World - were aired at Monday's concert.

They were greeted with thunderous applause by the 20,000 fans who attended the gig in Vancouver's GM Place. The stage was left simple and uncluttered, perhaps to counterpoint the complexity of the band's songs.

Meanwhile Copeland has revealed that there was still tension between the band members at times, with their strong personalities leading to arguments as they developed their musical ideas.

"We play nicely for two or three days, and then we start to get on each others' nerves," he told Reuters.

The group never officially split up in the 1980s but huge creative tensions meant that relations were difficult between the trio for many years.

"It's not the most comfortable place in the world being in The Police," Copeland conceded. "It's a bed of roses, all right - including the thorns."

The world tour, which runs until 2008, will touch down in North America, Europe, Latin America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

The string of concerts unofficially kicked off the night before when the band played a dress rehearsal for about 4,000 members of its fan club.document.write(unescape("