The Monkees Announce Two New Zealand Shows

Monkees mania is coming to New Zealand in November. Original Monkees members Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork will be gracing these shores for two shows as part of the group's 50th anniversary celebrations, which also saw them release new album Good Times earlier this year. The pair will be bringing with them songs from the new record as well as a whole heap of fan favourites from over the decades. Here are the details...

The Monkees

Tuesday 29th November, Isaac Theatre, Christchurch
Wednesday 30th November, ASB Theatre, Auckland

Here's the lyric video for 'She Makes Me Laugh' from the new Monkees album Good Times...

And here's the classic 'Daydream Believer'...

PRESS RELEASE:

The Monkees 50th Anniversary Tour
The Monkees’ Greatest Hits!
All the songs you remember!

On September 8, 1965, when producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider placed a classified ad in The Hollywood Reporter seeking “4 insane boys,” they had no idea that they were about to unleash Monkee-mania! But that’s exactly what happened the following year when the first episode of “The Monkees” debuted on NBC on September 12, 1966.

50 years later and the Monkees anniversary show is coming to New Zealand. After sell-out North American shows, and with a brand new album GOOD TIMES! in the charts (top 20 in US and Australia), Micky and Peter are bringing the Monkees magic downunder.

The Monkees 50th Anniversary show is a unique concert experience. Times may change but infectious pop hits and wonderfully charismatic characters stay in our hearts and memories forever.

‘Last Train to Clarksville’, ‘Theme from The Monkees’, ‘A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You’, ‘She’, ‘Saturday’s Child’, ‘Mary, Mary’, ‘The Girl I Knew Somewhere’, ‘For Pete’s Sake’, ‘Randy Scouse Git’, ‘Your Auntie Grizelda’, ‘Words’, ‘Papa Gene’s Blues’, ‘Porpoise Song’, ‘Do I Have to Do This All Over Again?’, ‘Goin’ Down’, ‘Listen to the Band’, ‘Shades Of Grey’, ‘Daydream Believer’, ‘What Am I Doing Hangin’ ‘round’, ‘(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone’, ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’, ‘Circle Sky’, ‘I’m a Believer’

When four young men were cast in the television roles of a struggling rock band inspired by The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, few could have predicted the impact the Monkees would make on music and pop culture at large, an impact that still reverberates 50 years later.

Assembled in Los Angeles in 1965 by Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the television series The Monkees, the quartet of Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, and the late Davy Jones brought a singular mix of pop, rock, psychedelica, Broadway, and country to their music. The show itself, meanwhile, paid tribute not only to The Beatles, but also to the comedy stylings of The Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy as well as the pop-art sensibilities of Warhol and the emerging San Francisco psychedelic scene.

The Monkees’ first single, ‘Last Train to Clarksville’, was released in August 1966, hitting #1 and serving as advance publicity for their series, which debuted on September 12. When the group’s self-titled debut album arrived in stores a month later, it quickly headed for the top spot of the Billboard charts, where it would ultimately sit for 13 of the 78 weeks it remained in the Top 200. (Two decades later, in the midst of a new burst of Monkee-mania, THE MONKEES popped back onto the charts, bringing the total number of weeks to 102.)

By the time the group’s TV series aired its final new episode on March 25, 1968, The Monkees had seen three further albums top the charts – MORE OF THE MONKEES, HEADQUARTERS, and PISCES, AQUARIUS, CAPRICORN & JONES, LTD., all of which were released in 1967, staggeringly enough – while racking up several more hit singles, with ‘I’m a Believer’, ‘(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone’, ‘A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You’, ‘The Girl I Knew Somewhere’, ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’, ‘Words’, ‘Daydream Believer’, ‘Valleri’, and ‘Tapioca Tundra’ all finding their way into the Billboard Top 40.

After the series’ two-season run, the group went on to star in the cult feature film HEAD (co-written by Jack Nicholson) and a TV special (33 1/3 Revolutions per Monkee) while also continuing to record new material, but much as the ‘60s gave way to the ‘70s, the members of the Monkees eventually gave in to their individual musical interests and went their separate ways… for awhile.

In February 1986, after MTV broadcast a marathon of The Monkees, Dolenz, Jones, and Tork reunited for a 20th anniversary tour, with Nesmith joining them onstage for the Los Angeles date of the tour, and in 1996, all four members of the group reunited for a new album (JUSTUS) and TV special (Hey, Hey, It’s the Monkees).

In the wake of Jones’s death on February 29, 2012, the surviving members of the Monkees reunited and performed a series concerts. The shows were greeted with sell-out response and phenomenal reviews. Now, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork carry on that tradition with a full evening of magic music and multi-media splendor, including clips from their Emmy Award winning series. Their new show features all of the Monkees hits, plus an intimate acoustic set and solo spots for each of the singers. This Evening With The Monkees is sure to please every fan of the band.

“We’re coming out to New Zealand and it’s the first time I’ve been back since the 80’s and I can’t wait!” – Micky Dolenz.

Tickets for the Monkees NZ tour go on pre-sale at 9am, Wednesday June 15, with general public on sale at 9am on Thursday June 16.