Given their advancing years, you’d be forgiven for doubting whether there’ll be much monkeying around.
Yesterday The Monkees announced they would be reforming for a 45th anniversary tour.
The band, who broke up in 1971, were put together by music executives in 1966 to star in a TV comedy and to be the U.S. answer to The Beatles.
Despite now being of pensionable age, three of the four members, Peter Tork, 69, Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones, both 65 – revealed plans for a ten-date UK run starting in May.
Fourth member Michael Nesmith won’t join in because, Jones said, he doesn’t like touring.
Jones, the only British-born Monkee, said the trio met over dinner in London on Sunday. ‘We need to share this music once again,’ he added. ‘According to the fan mail, they want it – and so we’re going to do it.’
The band, whose hits include Daydream Believer, I’m A Believer and Last Train To Clarksville, will make £1million from the tour. If it is successful, they may take the show to the U.S. and return for more UK dates at arena-size venues later in the year.
Drummer Dolenz, who shared vocal duties with Jones, is currently touring the UK in the musical Hairspray. Tork, meanwhile, has been performing with his band Shoe Suede Blues, while Jones is a racehorse owner and does ‘bits and pieces’ on U.S. TV.
The band will hope this reunion proves more successful than previous attempts. In 1996, Nesmith refused to join the band for U.S. dates, and in 2002, Tork, a recovering alcoholic, walked out after a row over backstage drinking.
Jones said, ‘I still want to perform. In these economic times, people want to hear music from familiar times that made them happy.’
