Monkees photographer extraordinaire Sherri Hansen has shared with the Live Almanac her photos from Micky Dolenz and Michael Nesmith's performance at the Royal Oak Music Theatre in Royal Oak, Michigan on March 12, 2019. As many of you know, Sherri's photos are first-class and they have appeared on this website and many, many other outlets over the last several years. You'll also see pictures of the band in this slideshow - enjoy!

Last evening Michael Nesmith, Micky Dolenz, and their band brought "The Mike & Micky Show" to a packed house at The Beacon Theatre in New York City. Thanks a lot to Renny Simno for sharing his photos from the show:

Here's a photograph of the merchandise table at the Beacon. Most of the items that were previously sold during the June 2018 shows are still available:

Thanks also goes to Wis Byron for sharing his video and photos from New York City with the Live Almanac:

The set list:

And here's a sampling of videos from last night's performance in New York City courtesy of Paula Carabell and Otom Izot on YouTube:

​Probyn Gregory is the newest member of The Monkees' troupe, joining Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, and the rest of the stellar backing band as a utility player on "The Mike & Micky Show" tour when it resumed earlier this month. Probyn plays guitar, banjo, and trumpet during the current live show.

Probyn is a Los Angeles-based composer and musician who for many years has been a member of the Brian Wilson Band. He has performed and recorded with The Wondermints, The Beach Boys, The Eels, Billy Joel, Eric Clapton, and numerous other artists in the L.A. power pop scene over the last three decades. Probyn played guitar on King For A Day, the 2010 album Micky Dolenz released as a tribute to Carole King, and he also appeared on three albums by Monkees archivist and tour producer Andrew Sandoval: Million Dollar Movie, What's It All About, and From Me To You.

A day after Peter Tork passed away, The Washington Post published a piece by Probyn that talked about Peter and The Monkees' legacy. In it, he also revealed how he became a Monkees fan as a kid:

Welcome, Probyn, to the Monkees family! Be sure to catch up with the other members of The Monkees' touring band in this previously published post.

Read more about The Monkees' touring band

Watch Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, and their backing band perform The Monkees' classic "Circle Sky" during "The Mike & Micky Show" in 2018:

(Footage courtesy of Ed Heffelfinger)

"The Mike & Micky Show" returns to the road in the United States this March and later in June in Australia & New Zealand!

John Billings shared some backstage moments before last night's show at Harrah's Lake Tahoe in Stateline, Nevada:

In this video, Circe Link, Christian Nesmith, Alex Jules, and Coco Dolenz harmonize on the Beatles classic "Nowhere Man" before the show at the Bob Hope Theatre in Stockton, California on June 8. They are joined for some comic relief by John Billings:

​Last night, Micky, Nez, and the band performed at The Grove in Anaheim, California. The set list from the first several shows was slightly rearrranged in Anaheim, most notably by moving "Steppin' Stone" from the second set to the first, while dropping both "Steam Engine" and "Grand Ennui."

Good Clean Fun
Last Train to Clarksville
Sunny Girlfriend
Mary, Mary
You Told Me
For Pete's Sake
The Door Into Summer
Steppin' Stone
You Just May Be the One
Some of Shelly's Blues
The Girl I Knew Somewhere
Birth of an Accidental Hipster
St. Matthew
Porpoise Song
Circle Sky
As We Go Along
Me & Magdelena

Acoustic Set:
​Papa Gene's Blues
Randy Scouse Git
Nine Times Blue
I'll Spend My Life With You
Different Drum

Take a Giant Step
Auntie's Municipal Court
Sweet Young Thing
Goin' Down
Daydream Believer
What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?
Pleasant Valley Sunday

Encore:
Listen to the Band
I'm a Believer

Thanks a lot to Kevin Barry for submitting some nice photos from the show:

And thanks as well to Jeff Gehringer for sharing two photos from soundcheck:

Last night, Micky, Nez, and the band performed at The Orpheum in Los Angeles, California. The set list was the same as opening night. Below you'll find some footage from the show courtesy of various Facebook and YouTube sources. 

On a side note, the Live Almanac is looking for high quality photos and videos from the first two stops on the tour. If you would like to share, please contact me! 

"Joanne" was one of the songs performed during soundcheck in Los Angeles:

Thanks to Facebook live feeds by The Monkees' official Facebook page and Valerie Kairys Venet, you can listen to Micky, Michael, and the band at yesterday's dress rehearsals, which included performances of "The Door Into Summer,"  "I'm a Believer," "Different Drum," "Steppin' Stone," "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?", "Some of Shelly's Blues," "Birth of an Accidental Hipster," "St. Matthew," "Steam Engine," "The Girl I Knew Somewhere," "You Just May Be the One," "Mary, Mary," "You Told Me," and "For Pete's Sake."

UPDATE 5/31/2018: Valerie Kairys Venet has deleted the live stream videos originally posted on her Facebook page, and as a result, those videos previously embedded below have been removed.

Nez can be seen below playing a Gretsch sunburst guitar that Andrew Sandoval gave to him in 2013 to have as an alternate to Michael's blonde Gretsch. He'll be playing both on the upcoming tour! Photos of today's rehearsals are courtesy of Videoranch and The Monkees Tour Facebook page.

​Tickets for joint Michael Nesmith/Micky Dolenz tour on sale now!

The photos below emanate from Circe Link's Instagram account and show Micky, Nez, Christian Nesmith, and Wayne Avers during this week's rehearsals at Videoranch for the upcoming tour. 

The next photo shows Wayne and his music stand with a list of songs. In the event you don't want a preview of some of the songs being rehearsed for the tour (and just to note, there are more songs being rehearsed than what is seen below), you might want to quickly scroll past this photo and the text that follows it!

Here are the selections that appear on Wayne's music stand above:

Good Clean Fun
Sunny Girlfriend
Salesman
The Door Into Summer
The Girl I Knew Somewhere
Steam Engine
Love Is Only Sleeping
Birth of an Accidental Hipster
St. Matthew
Circle Sky
Me & Magdalena

Acoustic:
Papa Gene's Blues
Randy Scouse Git
Nine Times Blue
I'll Spend My Life With You
Different Drum

Take a Giant Step
Auntie's Municipal Court
You Told Me
What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?

​Tickets for joint Michael Nesmith/Micky Dolenz tour on sale now!

Micky, Michael, and the band continued rehearsals today at Videoranch, and you can listen to a run- through of "You Told Me" below. Don't forget to check out yesterday's piece in Rolling Stone about the upcoming tour along with more rehearsal footage (including "Auntie's Municipal Court"!).

​Tickets for joint Michael Nesmith/Micky Dolenz tour on sale now!

The Monkees' Michael Nesmith, Micky Dolenz on Their Upcoming Duo Tour

By Andy Greene

From the earliest days of the Monkees, Micky Dolenz and Michael Nesmith had a special bond. Their harmony blend was a crucial part of the group's signature sound, and on the group's television show they shared impeccable comic timing and loved nothing more than to go off script and improv with one another. "We even had this odd idea about doing the Mike and Micky Show because we enjoyed playing together and singing together so much," says Nesmith. "We just never had the big money support for it because it was all about the Monkees, so we'd just set up on some of the set furniture and sing songs while the crew set up lights."

It has taken over 50 years, but their dream of the Mike and Micky Show is finally coming true in June when the "The Monkees Present: The Mike and Micky Show" kicks off a month-long run of dates in Chandler, Arizona. It's going to be a very different show than anything any incarnation of the Monkees has ever presented since there won't be screens displaying vintage clips of the group and they're dipping deep into the catalog to resurrect songs that have never been played live. "It's been a lot of work because Nez is quite the perfectionist," says Dolenz. "But it's so exciting to hear these songs done in their original context and harmonies. It's so great to recapture all these moments."

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the tour is that Nesmith agreed to it in the first place. Less than two years ago, he retired "Monkee Mike" after an emotional farewell show at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles. The group was in the middle of a huge 50th-anniversary tour, but Nez sat out nearly every date, leaving Dolenz and Peter Tork to carry the Monkee banner as a duo. But once those dates wrapped in December 2016, Tork told Dolenz that he wouldn't be available for any shows in the foreseeable future. "I realized if there was going to be any more Monkees music played live that Micky and I were going to have to do it," says Nesmith. "From the old Mike and Micky stuff I felt there may be some creative fun to be had here."

Rehearsals began at Nesmith's home in Carmel, California, a couple of months ago. At first, it was just the two of them and Nesmith's son Christian poring through the 12 Monkees studio albums, picking tunes they felt like singing and trying them out vocally without any band. "We did a version of [the 1967 Headquarters song] 'You Told Me,' the vocal part, that was really electrifying," says Nesmith. "I was like, 'Wow, this song does well under a little rock & roll power when you get away from the pop shampoo commercial stuff.'"

Special attention was paid to latter-day Monkees LPs The Birds, the Bees & the Monkees, Instant Replay and The Monkees Present. These came out after the peak of Monkee-mania and are packed with Nesmith originals he wrote while beginning to plant the seeds for his groundbreaking country rock group the First National Band. "One of the first songs we dusted off was 'St. Matthew' and 'Some of Shelly's Blues' [from the sessions for 1969's Instant Replay]," says Nesmith. "Mick asked if I wanted to sing 'Joanne' [a minor hit for the First National Band in 1970], but I felt it was way too much off into my own corner and not associated with the Monkees at all. But we are doing 'Different Drum' since that fell into the Monkee stew because Coco [Dolenz] started singing it in the live shows."

The show will also feature all of the band's biggest hits, including "Last Train to Clarksville," "I'm a Believer," "Daydream Believer," "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and "Stepping Stone." They call these the "can't cannot play" songs. "Those will always be about half to one third of any Monkees show," says Dolenz. "Nez likes some of the early Monkees hits more than others and I do too, but it goes without saying that we're doing all of them. I've learned over the years that once the audience knows they are getting those hits they will listen to just about anything else."

Once they had a working list of songs they wanted to do, Dolenz and Nesmith went into a rehearsal space with a band that includes Wayne Avers on guitar, Christian Nesmith on guitar and vocals, Alex Jules on keyboards, John Billings on bass, Rich Dart on drums, Coco Dolenz and Circe Link on background vocals, Pete Finney on pedal steel, and Paul Kramer on banjo, fiddle and guitar. The latter two will help them flesh out Nez's country rock tunes. "It's an astoundingly good band," says Nesmith. "This band and this iteration of the Monkees music is the best I've ever heard. It's the most fun to play, too."

They're going to rehearse all the way up to opening night on June 1st, and they have yet to settle on a final set list. "Good Clean Fun" from 1969's The Monkees Present is provisionally slated as the opening tune and "Me & Magdalena," "Circle Sky," "Porpoise Song" and "Birth of an Accidental Hipster" are near certainties. Dolenz is pushing very hard to get Nesmith to sign off on a version of the First National Band's "Grand Ennui" the ensemble has worked up. "I have been begging him to do that," says Dolenz. "Wait unit you hear it. It friggin' rocks!" Nez isn't quite convinced. "I told him it couldn't be any further from a Monkees thing, from subject matter to the way it's performed," he says. "When we started doing it, it jumped up to its full bright, sprightly self and we realized this would be a great song to sing. But so would, you know, the Beatles catalog and we have to stop at some point and say, 'This is a Monkees show.'"

One thing they aren't doing is any song originally performed by the late Davy Jones beyond "Daydream Believer." "Nobody can sing what David sang," says Nesmith. "He was so sweet and generous and the songs need this voice there when we play them. We made a decision to not do them."

Lingering over the whole tour is the absence of Peter Tork. The singer-guitarist successfully battled a rare form of oral cancer in 2009 and was an eager participant on every Monkees tour between 2011 and 2016, though he kept an extremely low profile in 2017. Earlier this year, he said he wasn't going to be involved in the tour because he was focused on his Lead Belly tribute LP Relax Your Mind. But the disc came out in January and he hasn't announced any tour plans behind it. "I've always had a certain distance from Peter," says Nesmith. "I don't really know what he's doing or what he's thinking."

Dolenz is slightly more willing to talk about the situation. "Last year when we talked about reconnecting he said, 'I'm not available,'" he says. "He told me a couple of years ago that he wanted to pursue his dream project, which is the Lead Belly album. He worked on it for a long time and he's going to tour with [his band] Shoe Suede Blues. My understanding was that Peter was just not available for this tour. That's his business and you'd have to ask him for more about it."

Tork's absence is a big reason Dolenz and Nesmith aren't touring as the Monkees, though when you ask them whether or not the band on the stage will be the Monkees you get a very long and philosophical answers about what the group was in the first place. "The Monkees is a television show," says Nesmith. "It was a group we played on television. Once it steps outside that show, people have to nourish it and make it something on their own. When you play the songs in your car or in headphones at your office it starts to integrate itself into your life like a real band. But that doesn't mean the television show is coming to life. You, however, might see it as a band. There's a real bifurcation in the way it exists in my mind. In some ways, it's a creative extension of the job I get called up to do every once in a while and really enjoy."

Dolenz looks at it from a bit of a different angle. "There's no short answer to this," he says. "It's like saying, 'What is Star Trek?' How many casts have been in Star Trek? But it's all Star Trek. You can't reduce these things in any scientific sense. We've never controlled the brand name and we have to pay [Rhino] every time we tour and use it, which we're happy to do."

Whatever you call the band, they have no plans beyond the end of the tour in Red Bank, New Jersey, on June 25th. Michael Nesmith already has a First National Band tour booked that will take him to the southern United States and up the East Coast in the fall. Dolenz is booking solo shows and is in talks with producers about returning to the stage on Broadway or the West End of London. But they both say they are very open to resuming the Mike and Micky Show at some point in the future when their schedules permit. "You just don't say no to anything right now," says Nesmith. "Who knows what's going to happen?

The Monkees Tour Facebook page posted videos of Micky, Michael, and the band rehearsing "Sunny Girlfriend," "Auntie's Municipal Court" (!), and "Different Drum" today at Videoranch:

Andrew Sandoval shared a photo from today's rehearsals on Instagram:

And courtesy of Videoranch on Facebook, here's a look at Michael's guitars at rehearsals:

On June 1, Michael Nesmith and Micky Dolenz will begin their first tour as a duo at the Chandler Center for the Arts in Chandler, Arizona. Entitled "The Monkees Present: The Mike Nesmith & Micky Dolenz Show," fans have already been promised a set list full of surprises and deep cuts, and the 17-date tour is likely to be one of the most unique in the live performance history of The Monkees. 

Longtime Monkees guitarist and musical director Wayne Avers recently spoke with the Live Almanac about the upcoming concerts. "The Nez and Micky combination gives us a chance to play some songs that have never been played live by The Monkees before," Wayne said. "It's also the 50th anniversary of the movie Head, so we will highlight some of the songs from its soundtrack. And of course, besides all of the new selections added to the set list, we will play all of the classic Monkees hits everyone loves to hear."

Wayne also revealed the musicians that will constitute the backing band, and the lineup includes both familiar and fresh faces. "We have added steel guitarist Pete Finney (from Nez’s First National Band) and Paul Kramer from Nashville on fiddle/banjo/guitar so we can replicate the more country-influenced songs of The Monkees more accurately."

Paul Kramer is a Nashville-based multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter, and this Nesmith/Dolenz tour will mark his first association with The Monkees. Paul has toured with nationally known recording acts including Gary Allan, Travis Tritt, Pam Tillis, Suzy Bogguss, and the Special Consensus Bluegrass Band. His fiddle and mandolin stylings have graced the recordings of Lionel Cartwright, Suzy Bogguss, Leon Russell, Willie Nelson, Buddy Spicher & Vassar Clements, and Carolyn Martin. He has released three CDs: Swing Street, The Bloggrass Boys and Low Budget Christmas. He currently performs with several bands including Paul Kramer & Swing Street, 50 Shades of Hay, The Grassaholics, Nashville Fiddle Mafia, and on the General Jackson showboat. (Biography courtesy of 50shadesofhayband.com)

Alex Jules is new to the band (replacing longtime Monkees keyboardist Dave Alexander) and is a New York born and raised rock and roll singer/songwriter now based in Los Angeles. You can sample some of Alex's work on SoundCloud.

Be sure to get your tickets to see Micky, Nez, and the band this June. And stay tuned to The Monkees Live Almanac for more updates soon!

UPDATE 3/9/2019: When "The Mike & Micky Show" returned to the road in March 2019, Paul Kramer was no longer featured in the lineup. Probyn Gregory is the newest member of the touring band and plays guitar, banjo, and trumpet. You can read more about Probyn in this March 2019 post from the Live Almanac's blog.

Rich Dart began his association with The Monkees in 2010 when he started playing drums for Micky Dolenz during his solo performances. He joined The Monkees' backing band in 2012 when Micky, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork delivered a series of concerts in honor of Davy Jones.

Rich earned a Bachelors of Music degree from Keene State College in New Hampshire. Since then, he's had an eclectic career as a free-lance percussionist. Rich has played with various symphonies, jazz groups, theater troupes, rock bands, country bands, and percussion ensembles. He also played drums for Avenue Q on Broadway and for its first national tour, and traveled with a production of Pippin. 

Rich is one of the founding members of the rockabilly band Creamed Corn and he also performs with The Illegitimate Sons of Keith Partridge.  

Congratulations to Rich, who made the announcement of his association with Sabian earlier today on Facebook: