The Doobie Brothers' 50th anniversary tour kicks off on Sunday night (August 22nd) in Des Moines, Iowa at Iowa State Fair. The trek will be broken into two legs: a fall 2021 run, and a string of spring 2022 shows — spanning a whopping 47 North American dates
The already covid-delayed tour features Michael McDonald back on keyboards alongside bandmates Tom Johnston, Pat Simmons, and John McFee. Back when then tour was originally announced, co-founding guitarist Tom Johnston said: “We’re truly excited about our 50th Anniversary Tour, as it’s a celebration of the band’s entire history. We’ll be performing songs from our full catalog, as well as new music.”
Michael McDonald added: “Performing again with the Doobie Brothers is something I’ve been looking forward to for some time, especially in celebration of the band’s 50th Anniversary. Now that it’s happening, I couldn’t be more excited.”
We caught up with Doobies co-founder Tom Johnston during the band's final rehearsals this week and he sounded thrilled with how things were gelling: “We are rehearsing over here — we're down in L.A., been down here for a coupla weeks. Basically what this tour is — the whole package — you're gettin' early, you're gettin' middle, and all the stuff with Mike, and then you're gettin; the stuff after that and. . . so, we're trying to cover all bases. It's a pretty lengthy set. In fact (laughs) it's the longest set I've ever played. And it should be a lot of fun for people, I think.”
We asked Johnston if incorporating Michael McDonald's material into the band's repertoire took some extra elbow-grease for the group: “Well, it always needs to be rehearsed, (whether) if Mike's here or not. We always rehearse a lot before going out. Mike brings another facet musically to the show, which is frankly, I think, kinda cool. He brings some depth — a little more depth — I should say, and it goes in a different direction. So, what you do is you place those songs accordingly through the set and mix it up with the other songs and then people get, as I said, the full aspect of what the band has done over the years.”
