The Police may have launched their highly anticipated 30th anniversary reunion tour on Monday night at GM Place in Vancouver -- with a hits-heavy, stripped-down production -- but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

For example, tomorrow night in Edmonton -- where they will play their first outdoor gig at Commonwealth Stadium with some tickets still available and Canadian pop-rock band Sloan also part of the bill -- they will have a different stage.

"The stadium set is different from the arena set," drummer Stewart Copeland told Sun Media on the line from Vancouver as the band prepared to go back into rehearsal before its second GM Place show, on Wednesday night.

"We have this really stark stage, it's a living, breathing piece of technology, and we've got our crew underneath there. When we take it outdoors, the stadium version of it, it's surrounded by all this other gargantuan, enormous stuff just to sort of take the message to the 50,000th person, way in the back there. And that's going to be an interesting contrast to a nice, little intimate arena with a mere 20,000 people. The kinetic ritual is more when you've got that bigger audience."

Copeland said that he, singer-bassist Sting and guitarist Andy Summers -- who sold 50 million albums worldwide in the late 1970s and early '80s -- really did want to keep the production simple for their reunion road trip, which has become the biggest concert tour of the summer.

"It's a form of arrogance -- let's be frank," he said. "And it derives from the fact that we did really conquer the world with just three guys on stage and when we did so, I guess there wasn't an expectation.

"When I went to see U2, I really enjoyed their show, but I found all of the staging to be distracting. You really don't need it, because they're a great band. And The Police was moderately popular with just the three guys, we seemed to be able to pull it off and so in our hubris, we've made the same assumption this time around."

Copeland, who had been exchanging e-mails with Sting earlier in the day on set-list revisions, said the show and set list will remain fluid.

The band still has a few songs that they've rehearsed but didn't play on Monday night.

"You see, one of the things that we're both blessed and cursed by in this group is the 800-pound gorilla with a surfeit of creative energy," said Copeland, referring to Sting. "It's like a torrent of creative energy that the mortals in the band -- that's to say Andy and I -- just have to deal with."

Some first-night reviews, including Sun Media's, were critical of major rearrangements of such Police hits as Don't Stand So Close To Me and Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic.

"Sting is the main driver of that," said Copeland. "The thing is he comes up with some new chords and we're torn because we think, 'Wait a minute. I really like the song the way he wrote it the first time he wrote it. That's sort of what people are expecting when they come to a Police show, is to hear the song.' And yet, these new chords that he's playing to us are kind of intriguing, kind of interesting. 'That's f---ing great, We should try that!' So we do, and then we get all comfortable, all excited about this new arrangement, and it's all going swimmingly, and we think, 'Great, this is really cool.' The next day at rehearsal, Sting says, 'I've got this idea,' and our hearts sink a little. Sting's creative mind never sleeps. He will be driving us nuts for the next year."

Seriously, Copeland said the famously fractious trio continues to argue, but it's strictly about the music and isn't personal.

"We still fight cats and dogs in rehearsals," he said. "We have a kind of cycle where we play nicely for two or three days, and then we have a shouting, slap down, screaming match that ends in hugs and kisses. And then we come back to playing again, we're like 20 times better than we were. Normally, we walk off stage at rehearsal and we completely bury the hatchet because we realize we value each other really highly. We appreciate what we've brought into each other's lives. And we actually kind of like each other."

For The Police, impatience turns to open excitement

Police drummer Stewart Copeland sums up the band's tour opener in Vancouver thusly: "We survived it!"

More seriously, he said, "The emotions going in were, 'Let's get this thing on the (road).' Not so much anxiety or nervousness as much as impatience. We've been rehearsing for four months. A lot of The Police thing is a response to the audience and we hadn't had that ingredient."

As Copeland let go with a series of yells as the band was taking its final bows on stage, how was he feeling then?

"I was thinking of (excitable former U.S. presidential hopeful) Howard Dean, actually," joked Copeland. "One of the great things about rock 'n' roll, about concert performances in general, is unless you totally, totally suck, you know if people have been waiting in line and such, you win the game."

Celebrations then, were definitely in order Monday night.

"We did celebrate," said Copeland. "Which is one of the reasons for our inertia the following day. At 25, we could celebrate like that, and then the next day brightly play another show. In our advanced years, we now need a day off after such celebrations."