Matchbox Twenty Announce 30th Anniversary Tour
The band reflects on ‘Push,’ a concussion-causing stage accident and tripping at a Bob Weir gig
It was one hell of a lineup for $18 at Vinoy Park in St. Petersberg, Florida, on Oct. 12, 1996.
Late Grateful Dead frontman Bob Weir with his side project RatDog, Joan Osborne, Chris Isaak — and a lesser-known band called Matchbox Twenty.
The Florida quintet (Rob Thomas, Paul Doucette, Kyle Cook, Brian “Pookie” Yale and Adam Gaynor, who left in 2004) had just released their debut album Yourself or Someone Like You, but their label folded on release day, the record sold a grand total of 610 copies in its first week and lead single “Long Day” was floundering. But here they were at Pointfest, thrilled to be on a festival lineup with greats.
“I remember meeting Chris Isaak that day,” Doucette, 54, fondly recalls.
“He liked my jacket!” adds frontman Rob Thomas, 54. “Afterwards, I stayed behind with Pookie and his friend and did some acid because we were watching Bob Weir and RatDog. I remember that day being a big deal because it was our first time on a festival bill with bands that we knew.”
How far they’ve come – 30 years later, to the day, Matchbox Twenty performed a coveted, intimate gig at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood to celebrate Yourself or Someone Like You’s 30th and commence year-long celebrations for their band anniversary. As the group prepared for a follow-up performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, airing on Wednesday, they shared dates for their 30th anniversary jaunt with Rock and Roll Globe.
And unlike their five-song opening set at Pointfest, the 52-date run will celebrate their extensive three-decade discography, from YOSLY to 2023’s Where the Light Goes, their fifth full-length studio album.
“The anniversary tour is not a 30th anniversary of Yourself or Someone Like you,” says Doucette. “A lot of people think that’s what we’re going to do, but we’re doing 30 years of being Matchbox Twenty. We have a lot we haven’t played in a long time, from every record. We want to reach back and do all of that. It’s going to be pretty great. We have some big plans!”
“The tour’s about 30 years of Matchbox Twenty, whereas the [Fonda] show [was] specifically about Yourself or Someone Like You,” reiterates Thomas, who also has solo shows benefitting his animal rescue organization Sidewalk Angels Foundation in January. “It seems proper to start off the 30-year celebration with the impetus of that 30 years.”
At that, Doucette cunningly teases, “If we’re going to start with the beginning of our music, how will we end it, Rob? I wonder…” to which Thomas responds, “We would need new music!”
The pair confirm they have been in the studio in New York, working on new music with longtime producer Gregg Wattenberg, who also collaborated on Where the Light Goes and Thomas’ solo music.
And while fans are thrilled to hear new Matchbox music’s on the way, the focus as they hit the road in May is their current discography. Naturally, that includes “Push,” which soared back up the charts and through radio request lines on the back of Greta Gerwig’s 2003 Barbie film, in which Ken (played by Ryan Gosling) strummed a guitar and continuously crooned the track to Barbie (played by Margot Robbie) around a campfire.
While they’ve performed “Push” for 30 years, the band realized how much their perspective on the Grammy-nominated track’s changed while recently experiencing it as listeners rather than performers.
“We had an interesting experience where were talking about ‘Push’ and listening to it and both [Rob and I] and Kyle were shocked at how sad it seemed,” says Doucette. “There was so much melancholy and it seemed exaggerated to us because when we play that song now, it feels almost celebratory since it’s become such a thing for our fans.”
“They have such a love for the song that it doesn’t have that [sad] feeling behind it anymore,” continues Doucette. “But we’re also not those people anymore. We’re all in our fifties and pretty happy, so we approach the song differently.”
In their fifties, they’ve also found newfound happiness as a band thanks to healthier communication habits. Doing so was transformative after escalating conflict over touring plans and direction came to a head in 2016, partly fueled by Thomas juggling a burgeoning solo career. Cook, 51, left the group for almost a year, while Thomas and Doucette also faced a rough patch.
“The great thing that came out of all that is that we figured out how to communicate better,” reflects Doucette. “Part of the learning process of being a band for 30 years is learning how to communicate. A lot of things that end up becoming problems are only problems because of miscommunication or a lack of ability for everyone to speak clearly. We figured that out.”
Of course, there was one recent incident where even their well-communicated performance plans couldn’t save the day – as Thomas slammed his microphone stand into Doucette’s head, causing a concussion.
The “Smooth” singer has long twirled the stand around while performing 2000’s Mad Season chart-topper “Bent.” Doucette says at that point, he normally backs away to allow focus on Cook as he moves to Doucette’s side of the stage for a guitar solo. But amid the lighting and strobing effects used in 2023’s Slow Dream Tour, Doucette struggled to gauge Thomas’ position, so asked him to head towards the front of the stage for his mic tricks.
“I said, ‘Rob, I can’t see past you, so if you’re going to do that swinging thing, I need you to go downstage and to your right.’ And that’s how we’ve successfully done it for a long time.”
However, during an August performance at the Illinois State Fair, the band had a shallower stage than they were used to, so although Doucette moved back as he normally does, it wasn’t far enough. In videos which circulated the globe, Thomas can be seen spinning the stand around in circles until it slaps Doucette, then flies out of his hands. “My head made it fall out of his hands,” explains Doucette.
“I had no idea,” adds Thomas about whacking his bestie, the impact of which shattered Doucette’s in-ears to bits, later requiring removal by tweezers. “I thought it just snipped him. And in the middle of everything, I’m trying to gauge the situation because I’m like the master of ceremonies for all these people out there. I was thinking, ‘Are we just buying time?’ Do we need to take Paul to hospital? Do I be funny? I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing right now.’”
After Thomas told the crowd, “My best friend in the world and I think I almost killed him,” Doucette triumphantly returned with a glass of red wine and the show went on. It wasn’t until he was flying home the next day that the multi-instrumentalist realized the extent of the wallop. “I was in the airport and started to realize I probably had a concussion. But I’m all good now.”
“Except he pisses his pants every time the microwave goes off,” jibes Thomas, to which Doucette retorts, “But I already did that.”
Weeks later, at the Utah State Fair in Salt Lake City, Doucette hilariously appeared on stage wearing a helmet before “Bent.” “I think that’s new merch,” laughed Thomas, before gifting the helmet to longtime fan Trisha Arkoumanis, who rocked the new headgear through the show.
Fans will have to stay tuned to see if Doucette brings more helmets on the 30th anniversary tour, which kicks off 15 May at Coca-Cola Amphitheater in Birmingham, Alabama and wraps 12 August at Acrisure Amphitheater in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Along the way, the band – joined on stage by American Hi-Fi guitarist Jamie Arentzen, drummer and Schmooze Coffee owner Neal Daniels, and multi-instrumentalist Matt Beck – will stop at iconic music venues including Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado (22 May), Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles (9 June) and The Colosseum at Caesars Palance (11 June). Venues cleverly teased the announcement by posting images of clocks reading 3:00am with their stages in the background and captioning the posts “… must be lonely” – a lyric from hit “3AM.”
As they celebrate three decades of music, the band – who is also playing Stagecoach Festival on 25 April – is bringing along the musical mates they’ve made along the way. Friends including The Wallflowers, O.A.R, The All-American Rejects, Matt Nathanson and David Gray will take turns as openers for the tour, which is expected to head Down Under following the North American run.
Matchbox should beware of Nathanson, who just spent the summer pranking Train frontman Pat Monahan on tour. “Touring with Matchbox is a total joy,” says Nathanson, who also opened for the group on their Where the Light Goes tour. “They are some of my most favorite humans on earth and I’m already dreaming up ways to prank Rob on stage. I don’t want to give too much away, but our last tour together ended with blow up dolls, WWE wrestling rules and a kiddie pool full of Jello!”
Meanwhile, Thomas’ 28-year-old son Maison Thomas-Eudy’s L.A. band The Lucky will open the Mountain View, Hollywood and Las Vegas shows. “We are so excited,” says Maison, a guitarist who formed the pop rock trio with singer-songwriter Tucker Click and drummer Josh Nardine. “Any chance we get to play live to people is amazing, but it’s definitely extra special getting to share the stage with them!”
https://www.instagram.com/p/DW7k6BwGPHD/?img_index=1
As for the influx of fans taking to social media to request the Grammy-nominated group take their One Night Only: Yourself of Someone Like You Fonda show (in which they performed the album in its entirety) further afield than Los Angeles, Doucette indicates they may have toyed with the idea already.
“It felt like putting together a show in a smaller setting – the kind of room we would have done when things started to happen for us – would be fun to do,” he says about the Hollywood gig. “And that it would be good to have that in our back pocket if we ever wanted to go, ‘Hey, let’s do that again at this other town.’”
Tickets for Matchbox’s Twenty’s 30th Anniversary Tour go on general sale on Friday 23 October at 10am local time. Prior to that, presales will run throughout the week, beginning with the Reserved by Spotify presale on Tuesday 20 October at 10am local time for eligible Spotify Premium top fans, then Matchbox Twenty’s Artist Presale, which starts Tuesday 20 October at 5pm local time. Fans can sign up to access presale tickets on the band’s tour dates page here.
Tour Dates:
May 15 – Birmingham, AL – Coca-Cola Amphitheater*
May 16 – Charlotte, NC – Truliant Amphitheater*
May 18 – Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena*
May 20 – Kansas City, MO – Morton Amphitheater*
May 22 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre+
May 26 – Salt Lake City, UT – Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre+
May 27 – Nampa, ID – Ford Idaho Center Amphitheater+
May 29 – Spokane, WA – BECU Live at Northern Quest+
May 30 – Vancouver, BC – Freedom Mobile Arch+
June 2 – Auburn, WA – White River Amphitheatre+
June 4 – Ridgefield, WA – Cascades Amphitheater+
June 5 – Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater+
June 8 – Mountain View, CA – Shoreline Amphitheatre+>
June 9 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl+>
June 11 – Las Vegas, NV – The Colosseum at Caesars Palace+>
June 12 – Phoenix, AZ – Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre+
June 13 – Albuquerque, NM – First Financial Credit Union Amphitheater+
June 16 – Austin, TX – Moody Center+
June 18 – Houston, TX – The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion+
June 19 – Dallas, TX – Dos Equis Pavilion+
June 20 – Rogers, AR – Walmart AMP+
June 23 – St. Louis, MO – Hollywood Casino Amphitheater+
June 25 – Alpharetta, GA – Ameris Bank Amphitheatre+
June 26 – St. Augustine, FL – The St. Augustine Amphitheatre+
June 27 – Tampa, FL – MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre+
June 30 – Hollywood, FL – Hard Rock Live+
July 2 – Wilmington, NC – Live Oak Bank Pavilion+
July 3 – Virginia Beach, VA – Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater+
July 7 – Burgettstown, PA – The Pavilion at Star Lake=
July 8 – Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center=
July 10 – Mansfield, MA – Xfinity Center=
July 11 – Gilford, NH – BankNH Pavilion=
July 13 – Bridgeport, CT – Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater=
July 14 – Richmond, VA – Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront=
July 16 – Columbia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavilion=
July 17 – Philadelphia, PA – TD Pavilion at Highmark Mann=
July 18 – Wantagh, NY – Northwell at Jones Beach Theater=
July 20 – Saratoga Springs, NY – Albany Med Health System at SPAC=
July 21 – Toronto, ON – RBC Amphitheatre=
July 23 – Tinley Park, IL – Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre=
July 24 – Clarkston, MI – Pine Knob Music Theatre=
July 27 – Cincinnati, OH – Venue TBA=
July 28 – Noblesville, IN – Ruoff Music Center=
July 30 – Council Bluffs, IA – Harrah’s Stir Cove=
July 31 – Shakopee, MN – Mystic Lake Amphitheater=
August 1 – Milwaukee, WI – American Family Insurance Amphitheater=
August 4 – Brandon, MS – Brandon Amphitheater~
August 5 – Orange Beach, AL – The Wharf Amphitheater~
August 7 – Charleston, SC – Credit One Stadium~
August 8 – Raleigh, NC – Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek~
August 11 – Cuyahoga Falls, OH – Blossom Music Center^
August 12 – Grand Rapids, MI – Acrisure Amphitheater^
*with The All-American Rejects
+with The Wallflowers
=with David Gray
~with O.A.R.
^with Matt Nathanson
>with The Lucky
- Matchbox Twenty Announce 30th Anniversary Tour - October 13, 2026
- Tony Kanal’s 40-Year Road to Rocking the Sphere in Las Vegas - June 4, 2026
- Goo Goo Dolls, What Were You Like in the ’90s? - May 22, 2026
