Thomas Dolby in his signature goggles and headset at a live performance

Thomas Dolby Got The Lost Toy People Back Together. It Has Been 38 Years.

July 13, 2026

By Bobby Catalano & Jason Pascoe·We were on Dance Party USAWe were with the Dance Party USA family in the studio every week while it played. The Golden Years! The feel is memory. The facts are research, checked against the record.

Some reunion news comes with a number attached, and the number does the talking. This one is 38.

On Tuesday, June 30, 2026, Thomas Dolby announced that he is putting The Lost Toy People back together and headlining this summer’s Totally Tubular Festival, the traveling 80s package tour that opens July 17 in Phoenix. It is the first time that band has played together since 1988, when they opened for Depeche Mode at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Nineteen eighty eight. Reagan was still president.

And yes, they are playing “She Blinded Me With Science.”

What Dolby announced

This is not a hologram tour and it is not one guy with a laptop and a hired band. Original guitarist Larry Treadwell is in. So is singer and percussionist Laura Creamer. Filling out the lineup are bassist Divinity Roxx, who spent years as Beyonce’s musical director, drummer Mat Hector, and trombonist Ethan Santos.

The set leans on the record that band made with him, “Aliens Ate My Buick,” which means “Airhead,” “The Ability to Swing,” “The Key to Her Ferrari,” and the deep cut the faithful actually want, “Pulp Culture.” Then, because he is not a cruel man, the hits.

Dolby’s own framing of the whole 80s revival is worth reading, because he is not sentimental about it. “The current ’80s music revival is more than just a walk down memory lane for those of us that were actually there,” he told Ultimate Classic Rock, pointing out that people born long after the decade ended are the ones digging up the ideas now.

He is right, and it is the least nostalgic thing anybody on a nostalgia tour has said all year.

Who else is on the bill

The Totally Tubular lineup is a fair chunk of a 1983 radio hour, with the lineups varying city to city: A Flock of Seagulls, Men Without Hats, Bow Wow Wow, Animotion, The Escape Club, Tommy Tutone, and The Producers. That is “I Ran,” “The Safety Dance,” “I Want Candy,” “Obsession,” “Wild Wild West,” and the most famous phone number in American history, all on one stage, in one night, in July.

We are not going to pretend to be above this. We are extremely not above this.

What Thomas Dolby meant to the 80s

Here is what people who were not there get wrong about Thomas Dolby. They file him under “one hit novelty guy in goggles,” and the goggles are right there in the video, so you can see how it happened.

But he was the opposite of a novelty. He was one of the first pop musicians who was genuinely a technologist, a guy who understood the machines instead of just renting them, and MTV in its hungry early years handed him a nationwide audience for exactly that. “She Blinded Me With Science” was funny and strange and it had a British scientist hollering on it, and for a stretch there you could not get away from that video, and suddenly every kid in America knew a synth record could be a comedy bit and a banger at the same time.

That was the trick of that whole moment, and it is why the Totally Tubular bill works. These were weird records. “The Safety Dance” is a weird record. “I Ran” is a weird record. And they were not filed away in some alternative corner. They came out of the same radio, at the same school dances and roller rinks, as the biggest mainstream pop in the country, and nobody thought twice about it. That was the last time in American pop when the strangest thing in the room was also the most popular thing in the room.

Dolby went on to be a real one in the tech world, too, but that is a different article. Come July 17, he is a man in goggles behind a wall of keyboards, and the Rose Bowl was 38 years ago, and the band is back.

Go see it

You will not get many more of these. That is not a scare tactic, it is arithmetic, and this week we have been reminded of it hard.

The tour opens July 17 in Phoenix. If it comes anywhere near you, go stand in a room full of people who are all mouthing the same nonsense chorus they were mouthing in the eighth grade. That is not nostalgia. That is just a good night out with better songs.

Bobby and Jason

FAQ

Is Thomas Dolby touring in 2026?
Yes. Thomas Dolby is headlining the 2026 Totally Tubular Festival, a traveling 80s package tour that opens July 17 in Phoenix, Arizona, and he is performing with a reunited version of his 1980s band The Lost Toy People.

Who are The Lost Toy People?
They were Thomas Dolby’s late 1980s backing band, best known for the album “Aliens Ate My Buick.” The 2026 reunion lineup includes original guitarist Larry Treadwell and singer-percussionist Laura Creamer, along with bassist Divinity Roxx, drummer Mat Hector, and trombonist Ethan Santos. The band last performed together in 1988, opening for Depeche Mode at the Rose Bowl.

Who is playing the Totally Tubular Festival 2026?
Thomas Dolby and The Lost Toy People headline, with A Flock of Seagulls, Men Without Hats, Bow Wow Wow, Animotion, The Escape Club, Tommy Tutone, and The Producers also on the bill. Lineups vary by city.

Will Thomas Dolby play “She Blinded Me With Science”?
Yes. The set is built around material from “Aliens Ate My Buick,” including “Airhead,” “The Ability to Swing,” “The Key to Her Ferrari,” and “Pulp Culture,” plus his signature hits, with “She Blinded Me With Science” performed live with the full band.

Sources

Photos: Thomas Dolby live by Stansell, public domain. Thomas Dolby performing by Rudi Riet, CC BY-SA 2.0. Both via Wikimedia Commons.