On week-end, The Police, the British-American group, will begin will kick off one of the most anticipated rock and roll tours in recent history in Vancouver.

The Police was formed 30 years ago by Sting, American drummer Stewart Copeland, 54, and 64-year-old guitarist Andy Summers in London. The band played a rock music that drew heavily on punk, jazz and reggae influences.

Until their separation, the three musicians sold more than 50 million albums worldwide, with 22.5 million records sold in the United States alone. They released six albums and The Police is known for emblematic songs such as Roxanne, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic and Message in a Bottle.

The 29-city tour which marks 30 years since the band formed will kick off Sunday with the first of three sold-out gigs in Vancouver. The first is a private concert for fan club members only, serving both as a reward and as a dry run for the main tour, which opens Monday.

"Lock up your mothers," joked Sting, the band's 55-year-old front- man, at the February press conference announcing the reunion. The tour was announced on February 12. "(The band is) a part of my life that I have sort of run away from for 25 years," Sting said at the time, admitting he had spearheaded the reunion. "But it's a very important part of my life."

The band broke up in 1984 after a series of internal disagreements, but Sting and Copeland have since moved to dispel the seriousness of the famous feuds that ripped the band apart. "We never hated each other," Copeland said. "We fought over the music but we always liked each other as people."

"We're wiser than we used to be," Sting added. "We still argue about the music but we have new ways of navigating through the disagreements.”

"There's no reason why we can't be better than we were 25 years ago," he said.