Micky Dolenz is 81 years old, the last man standing from a band that started as a television gimmick and somehow outlived the decade it was born in. He brings his 60th-anniversary show, songs, stories, archival video and all, to Northfield Park Racino at 7:30 p.m. this Friday, November 6, just two months after releasing a new six-track EP of original material.
A Band Built for TV That Refused to Stay There
The Monkees were assembled for an NBC television series rather than formed the old-fashioned way, a fact Dolenz still addresses head-on when he performs, according to cleveland.com. “I talk a lot about the Monkees, the genesis of it, the origin, how it all happened,” Dolenz said, speaking from a residence he keeps in eastern Pennsylvania. He has also described the group in the past as more of a musical comedy sitcom with cast members than a traditional band, and he has said he wants audiences to walk away understanding exactly how the whole unlikely project came together.
That origin story included a famous near-miss: Stephen Stills attended auditions for the Monkees before the lineup of Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork was set. The songs that followed were penned early on by a murderers' row of hitmakers including Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Neil Diamond, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, John Stewart, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, fueling chart-toppers like “Last Train to Clarksville,” “I'm a Believer” and “Daydream Believer.” By the numbers, the group racked up seven platinum-or-better albums and six Top 10 singles, per the same report.
When the Monkees Toured With Jimi Hendrix
The band's commercial success came with one of rock's stranger footnotes. In 1967, the Jimi Hendrix Experience opened for the Monkees on their first tour and, according to the report, received an indifferent response from the crowds who had come to see the TV stars. The Monkees' sitcom had premiered on NBC on September 12, 1966, as USA Today has reported, and the band's teenage fan base wasn't exactly primed for psychedelic guitar pyrotechnics.
Eight shows into that tour, promoter Dick Clark met with Hendrix's manager, Chas Chandler, to relay complaints that the Experience was too loud and, as Clark put it, “too erotic.” Hendrix left the tour shortly after, before going on to perform at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967. The show went on without him, and the Monkees' sitcom was ultimately canceled in 1968, though the band itself kept recording and touring for two more years, releasing the film “Head,” co-written by Jack Nicholson, before narrowing to just Dolenz and Jones by the time of 1970's “Changes.”
Reunions, Losses and a Band That Kept Shrinking
Dolenz and Jones reunited with Tork in 1986, with Nesmith rejoining on and off in the years that followed. The band's 2016 album “Good Times!” pulled in contributions from a generation of fans-turned-collaborators, including Weezer's Rivers Cuomo, XTC's Andy Partridge, Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard and Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger, per cleveland.com's reporting.
But the lineup kept thinning. Jones died in 2012, Tork in 2019, and Nesmith in 2021, just weeks after wrapping a final tour alongside Dolenz. Dolenz has said he misses simply being able to call his old bandmates, a loss that sits quietly underneath the anniversary shows he continues to play.
Still Recording, Still Touring at 81
Dolenz hasn't slowed down on the recording front, either. His EP “Timeless,” released on September 4, features songs written by Andy Partridge, the late Adam Schlesinger, Paul Westerberg, Vicki Peterson and Jonny Polonsky, and it marks his first collection of original solo material since 2012's “Remember.” In between, he kept busy with tribute projects: “Dolenz Sings Nesmith” in 2021 and “Dolenz Sings R.E.M.” in 2023.
His “60 Years of the Monkees” tour has stretched across the country, with dates that included a stop at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix and more scheduled into May 2027, according to Yahoo Entertainment. Asked whether he still has it in him to keep making records, Dolenz said he hopes to keep answering yes for many more years to come. Friday's show at Northfield Park Racino, located at 10777 Northfield Road, gives Northeast Ohio fans a chance to hear that answer in person.
