Thomas Dolby to headline first shows for 10 years
Electronic pioneer - Thomas Dolby - will return to the UK for three dates this Summer.
With appearances at Newcastle O2 City Hall (16th August), Manchester’s O2 Ritz (17th August) and London’s O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire (22nd August), the shows will provide a rare opportunity to see the celebrated musician, producer, composer, entrepreneur and professor, revisiting his inspiring back catalogue live on stage.
Previously announced to be appearing on the Totally Tubular Festival tour throughout June and July in North America (alongside acts including Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey, Modern English, Men Without Hats, The Romantics, Bow Wow Wow, Tommy Tutone, and The Plimsouls); Dolby’s only other European appearance will be at the W - Festival in Ostend, Belgium on 24 August.
Last seen in the UK for a one-off appearance at Electric Dreams festival in 2017, these will be his first official headline shows this side of the Atlantic in over a decade.
In a statement, Thomas Dolby said:
“This summer I’m going to be doing a big tour called the Totally Tubular tour which will be going all around north America - around 20 dates - with a great group of other acts including Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey, Modern English, Bow Wow Wow, The Plimsouls, The Romantics and others. There are a couple of dates in Canada, none currently set up for Europe I’m afraid. However, I’m going to be doing a festival called W - Fest in Ostend in Belgium at the end of August and I’m going to try and slip in a few UK dates around the end of August just so as to not disappoint you UK fans. I’m very excited about this… Please do come and see us during this tour and look out for my novel later this year.”
Support for the UK dates will come from Special Guest: Martin McAloon, who will be performing the songs of Prefab Sprout live across both nights.
Tickets are still available for the shows:
16/08 Newcastle City Hall HERE
17/08 Manchester O2 Ritz HERE
22/08 London O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire HERE
The list of breakthrough innovations in Thomas Dolby's 35 year career is continuous. As an early MTV icon he blazed a trail for electronic music with his imaginative videos. The same year as his own record reached the top of the pop/dance charts, he co-wrote and produced the first ever platinum-selling rap 12” single Magic’s Wand by Whodini. His synth playing and production have graced the recordings of Foreigner, Def Leppard, George Clinton and Joni Mitchell, earning five Grammynominations. He appeared live with Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock, with David Bowie at Live Aid, and with Roger Waters at The Wall in Berlin. And his self-penned She Blinded Me With Science became a Top 5 Billboard hit, going on to become an evergreen geek anthem of the 1980s that still pops up in Grand Theft Auto, The Big Bang Theory and Breaking Bad.
Thomas has created original music for feature films produced by George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Ken Russell; he has appeared with The Muppets, and on numerous TV shows from Soul Train to The Late Show.
Sought after as a consultant for tech startups and research companies, Dolby seemed to have a hand in every emerging entertainment platform, from laser disks and computer games to interactive TV, virtual reality installations and location-based entertainment. His name is on multiple US patents, and he has worked as an investment advisor for top venture capital firms. During the early Silicon Valley internet explosion, Thomas founded high tech startup Beatnik Inc and co-created the code that drove interactive audio in Java. When mobile phones began to play polyphonic ringtones, it was via his BAE technology, which Beatnik licensed to phone manufacturers to be embedded in over two billion cellular phones and devices.
Between adding music to the mix as in-house Music Director of every TED Conference from 2001-12, Thomas taught himself to be a digital filmmaker; and in 2013 he won multiple awards for his groundbreaking film The Invisible Lighthouse, which chronicles the closure of a 250 year old lighthouse visible from his coastal home in Suffolk, UK.
Since Autumn 2014 Thomas has held the post Professor of Music for New Media at Johns Hopkins University's Peabody Institute in Baltimore, MD. He released his best-selling memoir in 2017 ‘The Speed Of Sound’ (Macmillan/Flatiron) and plans to release his first novel ‘Prevailing Wind’ in Summer 2024.
This August, Dolby will return to UK live stages for his first headline appearances on home soil since 2013.
