Reunited Police begin world tour

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Playing loud and loose like they had never been away, the Police kicked off their first world tour in more than 20 years on Monday, delivering a two-hour set for 20,000 fans in Canada.

Singer/bass player Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland dusted off old favorites such as "Message in a Bottle," "Roxanne" and "Every Breath You Take" during the show, the first of two at the GM Place arena.

"Since we haven't been together in 25 years, I'd like to introduce the band. Andy, this is Stewart," a casual Sting joked a few songs into the concert.

Famous fans in attendance included actress Penelope Cruz, and Pearl Jam rock singer Eddie Vedder. Sting's wife, Trudie Styler, sang along ecstatically from her seventh-row berth, accompanied by Jerry Moss, the co-founder of the Police's A&M Records label.

The tour unofficially kicked off the night before when the band played a dress rehearsal for about 4,000 members of its fan club. The Police have been rehearsing for about four months, after Sting decided the time was right for a reunion and called up his old bandmates.

The band broke up amid clashing egos in 1984, after the last date of its Synchronicity world tour in Australia, but it reunited for a handful of dates benefiting Amnesty International in 1986.

Sting went on to even greater fame and fortune as a solo artist delving into the pop, rock, jazz and even classical genres, while Copeland focused on composing for film and television, and Summers explored his jazz roots with various projects.

Monday's show began with the early hit "Message in a Bottle," an ode to loneliness drawn from the band's second album, 1979's "Reggatta de Blanc." Six songs came from their final album, 1983's "Synchronicity," which topped the U.S. charts for 17 weeks.

Tunes such as "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" and "Walking on the Moon" recalled the band's early reggae stylings, while the evening's final song, "Next To You," served as a reminder of its punk-rock roots.

The stage was a simple affair, a split-level oval floor unencumbered by proscenium or backdrop. The special effects were limited to a retractable percussion setup used by the energetic Copeland on several songs.

The world tour is scheduled to end early next year, following two North American legs, a European tour, and dates throughout Latin America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

The band's plans beyond that are the subject of some internal disagreement. Summers recently told Guitar Player magazine that the "obvious thing" to do would be to make another album and then return to the road.

But Copeland told Reuters last week that he had no desire right now to do those things, and was simply looking forward to having "a blast for one year."

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Roger Clemens back in Yankee pinstripes

Clemens rejoins Yankees. During the seventh-inning stretch, Roger Clemens announce his return to New York over the Yankees Stadium public address system.

He agreed to a $28 million, one-year contract that will start when he is added to the major league roster for his first start, most likely in three to four weeks. Clemens will earn about $18.5 million under the deal, which will cost the Yankees approximately $7.4 million in additional luxury tax, meaning they are investing about $26 million in a seven-time Cy Young Award winner who will turn 45 in August.

“Roger Clemens is a winner and a champion, and he is someone who can be counted on to help make this season one that all Yankees fans can be proud of,” owner George Steinbrenner said in a statement. “The sole mission of this organization is to win a world championship.”

He begins with a minor league contract, and will start his workouts in Lexington, Ky., where his son Koby is playing in the Houston Astros’ farm system. He hopes to start pitching in minor league games in about two weeks.

Clemens will have the same travel privileges he had with Houston last year, when he sometimes skipped road trips if he wasn’t scheduled to pitch, spending time at home with his family and working with Astros minor leaguers. Torre discussed the arrangement with his veteran players before the Yankees agreed.

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Parrotheads pounce on Atlantic City Buffett tickets

From The Press of Atlantic City — Except for some scattered single seats, tickets to Jimmy Buffett's June 30 Boardwalk Hall concert sold out in less than five minutes Monday morning.

That was a bit too quick for Tom Logue, of Galloway Township, who went to Boardwalk Hall on Saturday afternoon to get a bright-red wristband, the official sign that he had a spot in the line that would form outside the hall shortly before the prized tickets went on sale at 10 a.m. Monday.

Logue kept his wristband on all weekend — the price of keeping his spot — then headed back to the box office about half an hour before the windows opened. A lottery-style drawing that morning by hall employees assigned him a position about midway in the line of 132 hopefuls who hit the hall Friday and Saturday for their Buffett wristbands, Logue says. But by 10:06 a.m., fans were coming out saying the ticket pickings were slim and pricey.

When he got to the front at 10:10, he says, the best he could do was two seats at the top price — $226 apiece. Logue, who was hoping for something closer to the starting price of $66, had to pass on that and walk out empty-handed.

“It was an exercise in futility, which has happened to me before,” Logue says. “They should have something to give the average person a ticket.”

But Boardwalk Hall officials say their box office works from the same pool of tickets that Ticketmaster's Web site and telephone centers draw on, meaning that the person with the wristband at Boardwalk Hall has no better chance to get tickets than the person sitting at home on the computer or the phone — or both.Then there are some who cover even more bases in search for tickets.

“Everyone standing there was speed-dialing on their cell phones,” says Logue, who heard the couple in front of him in line scoring six tickets — each — with their phones.

Greg Tesone, Boardwalk Hall's assistant general manager, says that in this age of online and phone sales, “The trend of trying at the box office for an event (like this) ... is kind of dying off.”

Still, the hall will keep its Boardwalk-front box office, he says, and the staff does what it can to make life convenient for people who use it. For example, instead of forcing them to line up for days for tickets to a big concert, the hall hands out those wristbands reserving a place in line when tickets start selling. Plus instead of using a first-come, first-served policy for people who get the wristbands, the hall prefers its lottery system — it puts everybody with a wristband in the same pool, and then draws spots for the actual ticket line an hour or so before the tickets go on sale.

But Tesone acknowledges both of those line-discouraging policies are also more convenient for the city and the hall, neither of which wants people camping out on the Boardwalk for days, holding their precious spots in a line to see Buffett or Bruce Springsteen or the Rolling Stones.

“We're probably a little more sensitive to that than (Philadelphia's) Wachovia Center,” which can line people up in an otherwise-empty parking lot before hot tickets go on sale, Tesone says.

On Monday, Boardwalk Hall itself sold more than 400 tickets — out of a pool of 13,000 or so the hall will hold for Buffett's first Atlantic City concert, by Tesone's figures.

He has two suggestions for people who seriously want tickets for any show anywhere: Don't necessarily ask for the maximum number of seats, whether the limit is six or eight or whatever, because the computers may answer that there aren't six or eight tickets left — whereas two or four could well be available.

Also, Tesone says, the computers are programmed to sell seats in a pre-determined order of quality in that price range: The ticket you're offered is the best available under that system. But any time you ask to check another location, he adds, you can lose your chance to buy the original ticket — or any, if they're selling quickly enough — as soon as the computer screen clears.

Still, there is one real advantage to going to Boardwalk Hall for an event there — the ticket is cheaper than it is online. On Monday morning, people who bought a $226 Buffett ticket in person saved the $23.05 “convenience charge” that Ticketmaster was adding to seats online.

That didn't help Logue, the local non-buyer, but in the end, he was philosophical about his morning.

“We'll just have to go to the tailgate party before the show, over at the Beach Bar at Trump Plaza,” he said.

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