Thomas Dolby shown here auditioning for "Mr. X: The Motion Picture."

Through the strangest circumstances, I have my wife to thank for the upcoming Thomas Dolby show I will attend within two weeks time. Last spring we ate at a fabulous Italian restaurant in Atlanta called Sotto Sotto while in Atlanta for the OMD concert. Last weekend she mentioned that it may be time for a road trip to Atlanta again just to dine there again. Of course, when considering a trip to Atlanta, it hardly goes without saying that one should view the concert calendar prior to making travel plans! I saw that Thomas Dolby was appearing there at the same venue I saw OMD at, The Loft. My next step was a jaunt to thomasdolby.com and a full view of the tour dates.

What I saw looked pretty enticing! Here’s the North American tour which starts next Friday, March 16, 2012:

Fri., March 16 AUSTIN, TX SXSW
Sat., March 17 NEW ORLEANS, LA Tipitinas
Sun., March 18 ORLANDO, FL Social
Mon., March 19 BIRMINGHAM, AL Workplay (Seated)
Tues., March 20 ATLANTA, GA The Loft
Wed., March 21 GREENVILLE, SC Handlebar
Fri., March 23 ANNAPOLIS, MD Ram’s Head
Sat., March 24 PHILADELPHIA, PA World Café
Sun., March 25 ALEXANDRIA, VA Birchmere
Wed., March 28 SELLERSVILLE, PA Sellersville Theater
Thurs., March 29 NEW YORK, NY Canal Room
Fri., March 30 NORTHAMPTON, MA Iron Horse
Sat., March 31 RIDGEFIELD, CT Ridgefield Playhouse
Sun., April 1 MONTREAL, QC L’Astral
Mon., April 2 TORONTO, ON Mod Club
Wed., April 4 DETROIT, MI Royal Oak
Thurs., April 5 CHICAGO, IL Park West
Fri., April 6 MINNEAPOLIS, MN Cedar Cultural Center
Tues., April 10 VANCOUVER, BC Rio Theatre
Wed., April 11 SEATTLE, WA Showbox at the Market
Fri., April 13 SAN FRANCISCO, CA Red Devil Lounge
Sat., April 14 SACRAMENTO, CA Harlows
Mon., April 16 SAN DIEGO, CA Anthology
Tues., April 17 LOS ANGELES, CA Largo

Greenville’s Handlebar is but a 90 minute road trip away, and if I used to journey to Tamps for shows from Orlando, why shouldn’t I do this trip, even if it does arrive midweek? What are vacation days for, any way? I see that he’s playing The Social in Orlando, That’s a club I spent at least a year of my life in during my Orlando daze, and it’s hard to imagine Dolby fitting his gear in the intimate space, but if Numan did it in 1998, I suppose it’s possible.

I knew that last year Dolby was going to issue a new album; his first in 20 years. But he went about it by releasing download EPs that were stylistically linked as downloads in advance of the CD, so I lost track of the progress of that campaign, and I now see that the album is finally in the format that I would pay for, so I need to get the CD tout suite! I also see that there is a deluxe format, 2xCD version for less than a king’s ransom, so I’m inclined to go with that. Given that Dolby is somewhat of a techno-über-geek, he also has videogames and apps based on this new album. Alas, I lack the game playing gene so these fall on deaf ears [eyes?] but his Time Capsule from whence this tour gets its name, is a tour-de-force of steampunk meets streamline modern mashup aesthetics!

Upload your message to the alien anthropologists in Dolby's Time Capsule®

Fans attending the shows will get to step into the Time Capsule [shown left, it seats three] and make a 30 second video for beings in the future [possibly humanoid] to learn where we went wrong, exactly. Dolby’s press release spells it all out here.

I immensely enjoyed his 2007 “Sole Inhabitant” CD/DVD package and felt that many of his performance of his classic material reached new definitive levels of accomplishment, so I an certainly looking forward to seeing this concert and as I said, I really must obtain his new album with all due haste. I waited a full decade before buying his wonderful fourth album, “Astronauts + Heretics” to my detriment, and need to stay caught up with the good Mr. Dolby, who seems to have left his cartoon funk phase behind as he makes mature music as rewarding as his earliest efforts were.

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