The Monkees book summer tour with two Southland dates

The Monkees will be monkeying around again this summer, as the surviving three members of the group undertake a more extensive tour following last fall’s dozen sold-out shows.

Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork will begin the new tour, dubbed”A Midsummer’s Night With the Monkees,” on July 15 in Port Chester, N.Y. It will continue through Aug. 18 in Portland, Ore., and has two stops scheduled in Southern California: Aug. 11 at Humphreys in San Diego and Aug. 12 at the Terrace Theatre in Long Beach.

“Nothing could have prepared the uninitiated for the powerful concert the Monkees delivered,” the Chicago Tribune wrote of last year’s tour, the group’s first since the death last year of singer Davy Jones and Nesmith’s first U.S. tour with his bandmates in more than four decades. “It wasn’t just a recap of the band’s greatest hits. It was an emotionally disarming multimedia show that, for all its backward glance, felt fresh and electric.”

A statement issued Monday said the new tour largely will follow the template of last fall’s multimedia shows incorporating footage from “The Monkees” TV series, their 1968 experimental film “Head,” screen tests and other visuals. It also gave a prominent role to the group’s third album, “Headquarters,” the first for which Dolenz, Nesmith, Jones and Tork had creative control over the music.

Nesmith recently concluded his first U.S. solo tour in more than two decades.

Tickets go on sale Wednesday, May 1, at www.Monkees.com, for presale and VIP ticket packages, with general sales beginning Friday, May 3. Full details are available at the Monkees website.

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