UK Electronic Music legend, Thomas Dolby, is set to perform at 3 UK dates this August, his first headline shows in more than a decade.
Dolby also welcomes as his special guest Martin McAloon, who will be performing the songs of Prefab Sprout. Remaining tickets are on sale now.
Thomas Dolby will be performing at Newcastle O2 City Hall on August 16, Manchester’s O2 Ritz on the 17th of August, and wrapping up at London’s O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on August 22. 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.
Thomas has previously announced his participation in the Totally Tubular Festival tour in North America, where he would be playing 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.
Thomas Dolby was last on stage in the UK in a one-off appearance at Electric Dreams festival in 2017, and 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 on sale now at these links as follows:
Friday 16th August – Newcastle O2 City Hall
Saturday 17th August – Manchester O2 Ritz
Thursday 22nd August – London O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
Thomas Dolby’s 35 year career is a continuous stream of breakthrough innovations. As an early MTV icon, Dolby 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 Grammy™ nominations. 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 Dolby 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.
For more information about Thomas Dolby, check out his official website.
