Micky Dolenz doesn’t want his 60 Years of the Monkees tour to be a “memorial”.
The 80-year-old musician and actor is set to hit the road in 2026 marking six decades of the Daydream Believer group, but he doesn’t want to dwell on being the last surviving member following the death of Mike Nesmith aged 78 in 2021.
He told Billboard: “I feel it’s time to take off the black armband and just celebrate the whole Monkees project.
“The show’s not gonna be a memorial. It’s not going to be heavily tributed. I’m just gonna sing the songs and tell the stories.”
Micky revealed the show – currently set to run from February to November next year – will include “videos from the original episodes” of the Monkees TV series, as some people still don’t understand the band’s formation and journey.
He said: “I’ll be focusing more on the chronology and on the TV show, using videos from the original episodes.
“I still have people ask, ‘So what was it like when the group got the TV show?’ I’m like, ‘Omigod, have you ever heard of a thing called Wikipedia?’ [laugh]
“There’s still a lot of people who are surprised when I explain how it came to be, that it was a musical comedy sitcom on NBC with us cast in it, not a band in the traditional sense.”
In 1965, Micky and Nesmith formed the I’m A Believer group alongside Davy Jones and Peter Tork following a casting call of actors and musicians.
Micky added: “Even at the time, frankly, people didn’t get it… because it was the first time anything like that had happened.
“It’s happened many times since — Glee, for instance. They create the act and then have the acts go out.
“I want people to understand how the Monkees came about, so I’ll be focusing on that, as well as the songs.”