Saturday was the last one. Sixteen shows in nineteen days, and York Barbican got the final night of it on 26 September, with Blancmange opening the same as they had on every date since Exmouth on the 7th. If you were still meaning to go, the window has shut. There are no British dates left.
Bailey said so himself (in his own words):
“Hello everyone, here we are in the amazing city of York. It’s the last night of our UK tour, which has been so fantastic. 16 dates, almost one after the other. We got to meet so many amazing people in beautiful places around the country. And we’ve been asked to think of a kind of memorable moment. I guess one for me was when two old school friends of mine joined us on stage to play Revolution in Buxton, and that was just a very special and heartwarming moment. But I have to thank everyone involved in the tour: this amazing band, the superb crew, and management, and most of all, the audiences who turned out to see us. We love you.”
Two old school friends getting up in Buxton to play Revolution with him. He did not say who they were and we are not going to guess, but that is a better story than most of what the big reunion tours put together on purpose.
What York Got On The Last Night
The Thompson Twins hits, which is what the room was there for:
- Hold Me Now
- Doctor Doctor
- In the Name of Love
- Love On Your Side
- If You Were Here
- Lies
- Lay Your Hands On Me
- King for a Day
Plus a few from his solo album Science Fiction. He has been changing the arrangements around on this tour rather than playing them the way they were on the records, and the songs take it well, they were always a bit odder underneath than people remember.
He had a full band with him: Charlotte Raven on vocals, keyboards and cello, Paulina Szczepaniak on vocals and drums, and Alice Offley on vocals, bass and keyboards. All three sing, so the harmonies came off the stage and not off a backing track.
Blancmange supported the whole tour. Neil Arthur fronts it now and they have four top twenty singles of their own, so anyone who turned up late for the headliner missed a fair bit.
The Year Before It
Earlier this year he did a short world tour through countries he had never played. Then a summer of UK festivals on the same bills as The Human League, and a standing ovation reported at every one. Then September, sixteen nights, with Birmingham Town Hall selling out so fast a second date got added on the 8th.
Not bad for a man whose band split in 1993.
When He Comes Back To America
He is not coming anytime soon to the US, so nothing on the books for now. We checked before writing this. Ticketmaster lists no upcoming US dates for Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey, Live Nation says the same, and his own website has the UK tour on it and nothing after.
What we can tell you is what he has done before. He played California in September 2025, a theatre in Menlo Park and then the OC Rewind festival in Huntington Beach. In 2018 he did a full run of American dates on a triple bill with the B-52s and Culture Club, the first time a Thompson Twins name had headlined over here since 1987. Before that, the Retro Futura tour in 2014, which is where the “Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey” billing came from.
So he does come over, three times in the last twelve years and the last one only a year ago. What he does not do is announce it early.
If you are waiting, keep an eye on his official website instead of the ticket apps, as official announcements land there first. And do not write the year off just because the UK had him in September. He is still touring. He is just not over here yet.