The Police's last concert: Madison Square Garden, New York, August 7, 2008

About the artist

The Police formed in London in 1977.^[1] Sting (born Gordon Sumner in Wallsend, England, in 1951), who sang and played bass, met the American drummer Stewart Copeland (born in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1952) in a London jazz club, and the two started a band with guitarist Henri Padovani.^[1][2] Andy Summers (born in Lancashire in 1942) soon replaced Padovani, and from then on the Police were a trio.^[1]

Their break came with "Roxanne." Sting began writing it in October 1977 in a run-down Paris hotel; it was recorded in January 1978 and released by A&M that April, and it flopped.^[3] Miles Copeland, who had heard the song, borrowed £1,500 to pay for the recordings, became the band's manager and secured the A&M deal.^[2] Reissued in Britain in 1979, "Roxanne" reached No. 12 there and No. 32 in the U.S.^[3] Summers later called it the turning point for what had been an unknown band with no legs.^[3]

Their first American tour began in 1978 at CBGB in New York.^[4] Reggatta de Blanc (1979) became their first UK No. 1 album and produced two UK No. 1 singles, "Message in a Bottle" and "Walking on the Moon";^[3][2] its title track won the band their first Grammy.^[1] In 1980 they toured the world, with stops including Hong Kong, Mumbai, Cairo, Athens, Mexico City and Buenos Aires, a trip documented in The Police Around the World.^[5] On January 10, 1981, they headlined Madison Square Garden, and the show sold out within days.^[6]

Synchronicity (1983), their fifth album, was their last in the studio and sold more than 13 million copies.^[2] Its lead single, Sting's "Every Breath You Take," spent eight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the band's only chart-topper there.^[7] The Police won five Grammys in all^[1] and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 by Gwen Stefani.^[8]

Why this was the last show

The first time the Police ended, there was no last show. The Synchronicity tour, which began in July 1983, closed on March 4, 1984, at the Melbourne Showgrounds in Australia, in front of about 50,000 people, with a long, stretched-out "So Lonely."^[9] Before the show, Copeland said the band had no studio time, no concerts and no other commitments booked.^[9]

The three shared a stage again in June 1986, for three dates of Amnesty International's A Conspiracy of Hope tour. They closed the final show, at Giants Stadium in New Jersey on June 15.^[10][9] MTV broadcast the concert, and U2's Bono joined them for "Invisible Sun."^[11] After that they went their own ways: Copeland into film scoring, Summers into experimental records including collaborations with Robert Fripp, and Sting into his solo career.^[1] The band had declared a halt in the mid-1980s but never formally broke up.^[12] At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony at New York's Waldorf-Astoria on March 10, 2003, the trio played "Message in a Bottle."^[13]

The reunion became public in February 2007. On February 11 the Police opened the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, and the next day, at a press conference at the Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood, they announced a 30th-anniversary world tour.^[14] Sting said the idea had come to him one morning about three months earlier, and promised there would be only the three of them on stage.^[14] Summers had told Billboard the previous month that he had never been happy with the way the band drifted apart into solo work after 1986, noting that they had never played a last show.^[14]

The tour opened in Vancouver on May 28, 2007.^[14][12] It was originally meant to end a year before it did, at Giants Stadium, but strong ticket sales kept the band adding dates.^[15] In February 2008 it reached Japan, with a show at the Osaka Dome on February 10 and two at the Tokyo Dome on February 13 and 14.^[16]

The end was announced on May 6, 2008. The band said its last concert ever would take place in New York City as a fundraiser for public television, and recalled that their first American tour had started at CBGB in 1978, so the journey would come full circle.^[4][12] In the same announcement they pledged $1 million to the city's MillionTreesNYC planting campaign, which the city matched.^[4] On June 6 the date and venue were set: August 7 at Madison Square Garden, a benefit for Thirteen/WNET and WLIW21, with the B-52's as special guests.^[17]

The members said the same thing. In July, Copeland told Billboard the tour had always been planned as a finite mission, leaving only a vague "who knows" if new material ever appeared.^[18] In an AP story published the day before the finale, he answered "Yes" when asked whether this was really the end, saying the commitment at the start was what had made the tour possible. Summers also said yes, though he allowed that he might consider it if someone suggested trying again in a couple of years.^[15]

What is known about the day

August 7, 2008, was a Thursday. The Madison Square Garden show was the 150th and last of a reunion tour that had begun in May 2007.^[19][20] Part of the money went to the city's public television stations and part to a plan to plant a million new trees around New York.^[21] The B-52's opened.^[17][22]

The first song was a surprise. Instead of "Message in a Bottle," which had opened the shows on this tour, the Police started with Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love."^[19] The New York Daily News read it as a nod to the band that had pioneered the power-trio format.^[21] "Message in a Bottle" followed, with the NYPD marching band on stage adding to the beat.^[19][21]

Four songs in, Sting thanked his bandmates for their musicianship, companionship, friendship and understanding.^[20] He called it a huge honor to be back with his old friends, then joked that the real triumph of the tour was that they hadn't strangled each other, though the thought had crossed his mind.^[19][20]

The set moved quickly through "Walking on the Moon," "Invisible Sun" and "Can't Stand Losing You."^[19] According to the Daily News, Summers took long solos on "Driven to Tears" and "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around," while Sting sang fresh melodic variations on many of the songs.^[21] A few bars of Manfred Mann's "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" led into "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da."^[22] Sting's daughters danced near their father during "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,"^[19][20] and before "Don't Stand So Close to Me" he talked about his years as a teacher before the Police.^[19]

When the main set ended, the screens cut to backstage. Sting sat in a barber's chair while two women shaved off his beard with an electric razor, his shoes were shined and his nails done, and the job was finished with shaving cream and a razor. Midway through, Copeland walked in and kissed him on the lips.^[19][20] The crowd laughed through it all, and Sting came back out with shaving cream still at the corner of his mouth.^[20]

The encores began with the Jimi Hendrix Experience's "Purple Haze,"^[21][22] another salute to a famous rock trio.^[20] Then came "Roxanne."^[20] The AP also reported that "Every Breath You Take" was played that night.^[20] Bloomberg's review counted six songs in the encores, including "Roxanne," ending with "Next to You."^[22]

"Next to You" is the first track on Outlandos d'Amour, the debut album from 1978.^[23] Rolling Stone described its final notes filling the air of the Garden.^[19]

Then the joke ending. A crew member dressed as a heavyset opera singer appeared and lip-synced an aria, the Looney Tunes music played, Sting danced, and Porky Pig's "That's all, folks!" closed the night.^[19][20][21] "Madison Square Garden!" Sting shouted, calling it the center of the city and the center of the world, and said goodnight.^[19] The show ran a little under two hours.^[19] The same sign-off had already been used a week earlier in Boston, where a roadie held up a clear drum head reading "That's All Folks!" as the last note faded.^[24]

What the show left behind

According to Rolling Stone, the 15-month reunion tour drew 3.7 million people and earned nearly $386 million.^[19] The AP put the Police alongside the Eagles as one of the two most successful reunions in rock history, with one difference: the Eagles were touring and recording again, and the Police said they were done.^[20] Rolling Stone, noting that farewell tours were a running joke in rock, still judged that this seemed to be really it.^[19] The Daily News critic took the other side, pointing out how often pop stars break retirement promises and hoping the Police would break theirs.^[21]

So will the Police tour again? The members have been asked many times. In July 2010, Sting said the reunion tour had had no new songs and no new energy, called it purely an exercise in nostalgia, said he had no regrets, and ruled out doing it again.^[25] In an April 2023 interview, Copeland ruled out another reunion "for honorable reasons," said the three got along great as long as they didn't have to share a stage or a studio, and put the chances of more shows at one in a million.^[26] In the sources checked for this page, there is no record of the three performing as the Police for an audience since August 7, 2008, as of November 2026.

The songs have kept going without them. In October 2022, YouTube announced that the "Every Breath You Take" video had joined its Billion Views Club.^[7] In Japan, a 40th-anniversary super deluxe edition of Synchronicity came out on July 26, 2024,^[27] and on December 10, 2025, studio albums including Outlandos d'Amour and Synchronicity were reissued there in paper-sleeve editions.^[23][28]

Looking back, the Police ended twice. In Melbourne in 1984 they finished a tour with "So Lonely" and nothing booked, and simply went their separate ways.^[9] The regret Summers voiced before the reunion, that they had never played a last show,^[14] was settled in New York in 2008 with a final night announced in advance. In the city where their first American tour began, they closed with the first song from their first album, and walked off.