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The Monkees at the Greek Theatre

December 3, 2021

The Monkees (Micky Dolenz/ Mike Nesmith) played the last show of their farewell tour at the Greek Theatre Sunday night (11/14).

This was also the second to last show of the Greek Theatre’s 2021 season. It was quite an emotional night as it may very well be the last time Dolenz and Nesmith perform live together. After the show’s producer announced Dolenz and Nesmith calling it the Mike and Micky show the band took the stage followed by the two surviving Monkees. Davy Jones passed in 2012 and Peter Tork passed in 2019 leaving Dolenz and Nesmith as the only surviving members.

The Monkees were originally a fictional TV band with a show of the group’s name. 55 years later the group has left their mark on pop culture and still remain popular to this day. Even after the show was cancelled the group continued to release albums. The original lineup released six albums, the first four were number ones. Soon after, Tork left the group. The original lineup did 3 tours before becoming a trio of Dolenz, Jones and Nesmith.

It was 17 years until the group toured again which was in honor of the group’s 20th anniversary (1986) which consisted of Dolenz, Jones, and Tork. That trio did another two tours before disbanding again then reuniting for the 30th anniversary of the group (1996) as the same lineup. In 2001 Dolenz and Jones toured together. The trio regrouped in 2011 for their 45th anniversary. Following the passing of Jones, Dolenz, Nesmith, and Tork toured in 2012 and did another two tours until the group became a duo of Dolenz and Tork (2015) The duo toured once again for the groups 50th anniversary with Nesmith making select appearances. In 2019 the two surviving members became the Mike and Micky show and were meant to tour again last year until the Covid-19 pandemic caused all live events to be cancelled. Now in 2021 Dolenz and Nesmith came together for their farewell tour which happens to be the 55th anniversary of The Monkees.

The Monkees were quite controversial back in the 60’s as they did not play their own instruments on the records, however it was later revealed that in the Wrecking Crew Documentary this was a common practice among many groups since it saved a lot of time in the studio and moniteraily. At the same time the Monkees were a fictional band taking a lot of heat and in the documentary Dolenz said “People take their Rock N Roll very seriously,” and many of the other groups of that era are now “coming clean” about who played on their recordings. One of the funniest moments was a story Tork shared about coming to the studio with his guitar to find out he was just there to sit and watch someone else play his part, but it was the way Tork shared it that made it so humorous.

The show was broken into sets with a brief intermission in between. The Monkees opened with “Good Clean Fun,” followed by their number one “Last Train to Clarksville.” The set included seven of their 10 biggest Billboard hits. In total there were 27 songs among both sets. Set one also included the hit “Mary, Mary,” and “Pleasant Valley Sunday” written by Carole King which hit number 3 was the closer for set one. Set two opened with “Porpoise Song” from Head with Dolenz solo then the following song “While I Cry,” featured Nesmith solo. Throughout set two Nesmith only performed every other song before walking on and off stage. The third to last song which was a number one hit, “Daydream Believer,” originally sung by Jones was dedicated to Jones and during the song Dolenz shouted out “Davey, you listening?” It was quite an emotional performance of this song specifically. The show ended with “I’m A Believer” written by Neil Diamond and if you were a parent with kids in the early 00’s you may remember Smash Mouth’s version in Shrek.

The farewell tour began September 10th in Spokane, WA and ran over 40+ dates before ending at the Greek Theatre.

Set 1: