Given the way that the Darker Waves Festival and the Cruel World Festival have successfully mined the desire for fans of '80s new wave and British pop to come together and enjoy performances by iconic artists of that era, it should come as no surprise that some entrepreneur would take the idea on the road.
As such, please prepare to be completely unsurprised by the unveiling of the Totally Tubular Festival, which will - just as its incredibly on-the-nose name clearly implies - feature a lineup of artists who found their first burst of fame in the '80s...or, to use the phrase within the press release announcing the tour, "artists that exploded in the pop culture zeitgeist in the early to mid-1980’s thanks mainly to the high rotation of their music videos on MTV."
Annabella Lwin of Bow Wow Wow, one of the artists on this summer's "Totally Tubular Festival"
The tour, which will hit 17 cities throughout the US and Canada between June 28 and July 27, offers a lineup which features Thomas Dolby, Tom Bailey (Thompson Twins), Modern English, Men Without Hats, the Romantics, Bow Wow Wow, and the Plimsouls. In addition, Tommy Tutone will appear on select dates of the tour, but as to which dates those will be, we cannot say, as that information was not provided within the aforementioned press release.
What was provided, however, was a quote from Jon Pleeter, who is - wait for it - the festival's CPO (Chief Party Officer).
“This is a dream lineup for those who love the music of the early 1980’s, and for those who want to relive the days when life was…plain and simply--a total party. You wore dayglow, you wore parachute pants, you had big hair, perms and more perms, mullets, leg warmers, along with tons of buttons and lots of rubber bracelets. You wore sunglasses at night. The choruses were big, and the hooks were bigger—the party didn’t end.”
Frankly, we're still stuck on that whole "Chief Party Officer" thing. But we're trying to move past it and just focus on that lineup, which sounds like a tremendous amount of fun. Granted, Q remains understandably disappointed by the absence of Peter Case within the current lineup of the Plimsouls, but with longtime member Eddie Munoz playing alongside Rick West (The Legend), Anthony Kaczyński (Magnetic Fields), and Garret Vandermolen (Speed Fossil), it's still sure to be a solid performance.
The 2023-2024 incarnation of The Plimsouls
The dates and locations for the Totally Tubular Festival are as follows:
6/28 – Santa Barbara, CA – Santa Barbara Bowl
6/29 – Los Angeles, CA – YouTube Theatre
6/30 – Oakland, CA – Fox Theatre
7/3 – Phoenix – Arizona Financial Theatre
7/6 – Englewood, CO – Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre
7/9 – Irving, TX – Pavilion @ Toyota Music Factory
7/10 – Houston, TX – 713 Music Hall
7/13 – Raleigh, NC – Red Hat Amphitheatre
7/16 – Bridgeport, CT – Hartford Healthcare Amphitheatre
7/17 – Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall @ Fenway
7/18 – New York, NY – Pier 17
7/19 – Atlantic City, NJ – Hard Rock Live @ Etess Arena
7/20 – Bushkill, PA – Poconos Park Amphitheatre
7/23 – Laval, QUE – Place Bell
7/24 – Missisauga, ONT – GCT Theatre
7/26 – Detroit, MI – Meadowbrook Amphitheatre
7/27 – Cincinnati, OH – Riverbend Music Center Amphitheatre
