The Doobie Brothers Kick Off 50th Anniversary Reunion Tour

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.”