New Kids on the Block and the rest of your ’80s mixtape favorites are coming to Florida
Remember fluorescent colored sweatpants, T-shirts and parachute pants? Rockin’ the block with mixtapes on your boombox blasting New Kids on the Block, En Vogue, Salt-N-Pepa and Rick Astley?
You and your kids who have started mixing up your Spotify and Apple Music playlists with vinyl records on turntables and — can you believe it -- $19.98 cassette tapes for some new releases like last Friday’s Tony Bennett/Lady Gaga joint, are going to love this:
New Kids on the Block, En Vogue, Salt-N-Pepa and Rick Astley are joining forces for The MixTape Tour 2022, which will make three stops in Florida next summer.
When is the tour in Florida?
Among the tour’s 50-plus dates, which start May 10 in Cincinnati, are three Florida stops.
▪ Friday, July 8, at Jacksonville’s Veterans Memorial Arena.
▪ Saturday, July 9, at Sunrise’s FLA Live Arena (formerly BB&T Center).
▪ Sunday, July 10, at Orlando’s Amway Center.
What about tickets?
Tickets go on sale Friday, Oct. 8, via Ticketmaster.com, with a pre-sale date one day earlier on Oct. 7. For info on VIP packages and what NKOTB has to say about all of this late 1980s-early 1990s nostalgia, hit www.nkotb.com.
Back when NKOTB and the others had hits on the radio you had to stand in line outside of a record store to buy tickets and didn’t have the convenience of a website. Of course, tickets won’t be under $20. The tour’s producer, Live Nation, says the price range will be $25.20 to $175.20. “There’s a price level for everyone!” a spokeswoman said.
“We had a blast out on the first MixTape Tour in 2019, and can’t wait to take it to another level with our fans on the MixTape Tour 2022,” Donnie Wahlberg said in a news release. “Just like a mixtape, these shows are going to take audiences through all the emotions. To be able to have Salt-N-Pepa come back and now also have the iconic and legendary Rick Astley and En Vogue join the tour … we could not be more excited. Let’s GO!”
So what will you hear on this MixTape?
“Hangin’ Tough,” “I’ll Be Loving You (Forever)” and “Step By Step” from the reunited NKOTB, for sure.
“Push It,” “Shoop” and “Whatta Man” from Salt-N-Pepa.
“Never Gonna Give You Up” and “Together Forever” from Astley.
And “Don’t Let Go [Love],” “Free Your Mind” and “Give It Up, Turn It Loose” from En Vogue.
That’s no Rickroll
Astley came out of retirement at age 50 five years ago to tour again and record new music — which included his first dates in Miami in decades in 2017. The perennial YouTube and TikTok champ gets to come back to South Florida, a place he found he loved. The British pop star had visited the Keys with his wife to check out sites featured on his then favorite TV show, Netflix’s “Bloodline,” he told the Miami Herald in 2017.
“I’d been to Miami once or twice before but never that Florida Keys trip,” Astley had said. “It’s great. It’s one of those places if you don’t live there, if you’re from the UK, you’ve seen it so many times in movies and in TV shows. We were quite impressed with Miami as a city. We went to a few museums and stuff.”
This story was originally published October 5, 2021 at 12:42 PM.
