The tour began in May 2007 to overwhelmingly positive reviews from fans and critics alike and ended in August 2008 with a final show at Madison Square Garden.

On 12 February, the Police held rehearsals and a press conference for the media at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles, where they confirmed they would be undertaking the world tour starting in Vancouver in May.

[4] It was also announced the opening act for the North American and European legs of the tour would be Fiction Plane, a pop-rock band from England featuring lead singer and bass guitarist Joe Sumner, the son of Sting.

While the Vancouver concerts received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics,[11][12] drummer Stewart Copeland, in a forum posting on his official site, called the band's 29 May performance "lame" and took humorous pokes at himself and his bandmates.

He called one of Sting's song-ending leaps that of a "petulant pansy instead of the god of rock", joked the band botched the key changes so thoroughly they ended up playing "avant-garde twelve-tone hodgepodges" of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" and "Don't Stand So Close to Me", suggested that guitarist Andy Summers was "in Idaho" when he and Sting ended up half a bar out of sync with each other during opener "Message in a Bottle", and claimed he "made a hash" out of a fill he had worked out for in "Walking in Your Footsteps" by playing it in the wrong part of the song.

The placement of the band members echoed that of previous tours, with Sting and his bass equipment located stage-right, with Andy Summers and his guitar pedals and amps on stage-left.

Other songs played in 2007 were "Truth Hits Everybody" †, "The Bed's Too Big Without You", "Spirits in the Material World" †, "Dead End Job" and "Murder by Numbers".

Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" and Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" were added for the final concert on 7 August 2008 at Madison Square Garden.