Hall & Oates To Headline MSG; First Time Since ’85

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The hit-making duo from a 2012 Facebook photo

Update (2/19/16): Though the MSG concert is a sell-out, tickets are available on the secondary market at the link below. They perform on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday night, February 22nd.

Update (12/8): More than two months before the date, the concert is close to a sell-out. Click on the link below to purchase tickets.

Call it persistence, stick-to-it-tive-ness or whatever you wish. But 30-plus years after their last headlining show at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Daryl Hall and John Oates will once again top the bill at The World’s Most Famous Arena.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow morning, November 6th, for the hitmaking duo’s return engagement on February 19, 2016. (Click here to purchase.) They are doing other U.S. dates from November 16th through January 23rd.

“It’s the result of years and years of hard work,” Oates tells Newsday. “Everything means more to us now than when we were part of a big machine. No one is pulling our strings. It’s a great place to be.”

Best Classic Bands Founder/CEO Greg Brodsky was part of that “big machine” when, in 1985, he was a publicist for the duo’s longtime label RCA Records. “They delivered an album every year like clockwork for us to release each fall,” he recalls. “They were in the midst of an unbelievable roll with two to four huge singles on each album.”

That 1981-’85 run of 13 Top 10 singles included the #1 hits “Kiss On My List,” “Private Eyes,” “I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do),” “Maneater” and “Out Of Touch.” And then their magic touch ended abruptly.

A couple of years later, Brodsky arranged for their ballad “One On One” to be used on a NBA promotional spot whose production qualities look primitive now.

As for the MSG gig, fans won’t be disappointed. “We want the night to be an experience,” Oates adds.

Hall & Oates were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year and are the second best-selling duo of all time. If your instinct is to guess Simon & Garfunkel at #1 you would be wrong; the distinction is held by The Carpenters.