”Andy has started the opening guitar riff to Message In A Bottle and the crowd is going nuts. Problem is, I missed hearing him start. Is he on the first time around or the second? I look over at Sting and he’s not much help, his cue is me – and I’m lost. Never mind. “Crack!” on the snare and I’m in, so Sting starts singing. Problem is, he heard my crack as two in the bar, but it was actually four – so we are half a bar out of sync with each other. Andy is in Idaho.

Well we are professionals so we soon get sorted, but the groove is eluding us. We crash through Message and then go strait into Synchronicity. But there is just something wrong. We just can’t get on the good foot. (...) The mighty Sting momentarily looks like a petulant pansy instead of the god of rock. Never Mind. Next song is going to be great…

But it isn’t. We get to the end of the first verse and I snap into the chorus groove – and Sting doesn’t. He’s still in the verse. We’ll have to listen to the tapes tomorrow to see who screwed up, but we are so off kilter that Sting counts us in to begin the song again. This is ubelievably lame. We are the mighty Police and we are totally at sea.

(...) In Walking/Footsteps, I worked out a cool rhythm change for the rock-a-billy guitar solo, but now I make a complete hash of it – by playing it in the wrong part of the song. It’s not sounding so cool.

It usually takes about four or five shows in a tour before you get to the disaster gig. But we’re The Police so we are a little ahead of schedule. (...) When we meet up back-stage for the first time after the set and before the encores, we fall into each other’s arms laughing hysterically. (...) Screw it, it’s only music. What are you gonna do? But maybe it’s time to get out of Vancouver…\"

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The setlist of The Police\'s first show in Vancouver on May 28, 2007: