The Tubes' first tour in 19 months visits Rocklin on Sunday

The Tubes, a rock group that formed in 1972 in San Francisco, is still going strong 49 years later. Only a handful of bands with the original members perform month after month for decades to sold-out shows. The Tubes is one of those bands still in high demand. Next year is the big 50th anniversary for The Tubes and four out of the five founding Tubes members are still happily sharing the stage. Led by lead singer Fee Waybill, the other founding members are drummer Prairie Prince, guitarist Roger Steen and bassist Rick Anderson. Keyboardist David Medd has been with the band for almost two decades. The Tubes play this weekend for the first time since COVID-19 stopped live concerts nationwide and the third show Sunday is at the Amphitheater at Quarry Park in Rocklin. "We haven't done a gig in 19 months and we're excited to go out and do gigs again," Waybill said Monday. Waybill's best part of his job, in fact, "is the joy I feel on the stage singing to people and the joy I feel coming back from the audience to us. When they give a big smile and their eyes are gleaming back, there's nothing like it. It makes you feel elated, so wonderful. Nothing can compare. That's what I live for. That's why it's so hard not to perform. We're all so crazy about performing. We go crazy on stage. It's such a joy." Besides playing the complete funk-flavored "The Completion Backward Principle," The Tubes' setlist Sunday includes "White Punks on Dope", "Mondo Bondage," "What Do You Want from Life," "Out of the Business," "I Want It All Now," "She's a Beauty" and "Talk To Ya Later." The band will have a meet and greet after the show. Waybill hopes Sunday's audience receives the message that imagination creates reality. "Don't give up. A lot of people are depressed with the current situation. The album, 'The Completion Backward Principle,' is about manifest your dreams and keep on manifesting your dreams," Waybill said. "That's what we do. As a kid, I wanted to be in a band and I started singing The Beatles. Later, I started working as a roadie and eventually made it to being a lead singer in a band. I taught myself to sing. Manifest your dream." The Tubes' all-ages audiences include fans whose parents used to play their records. "There are the old fans when they went to college or whatever and their kids who can appreciate it, after hearing the records. It's real, not computer-generated," Waybill said. "It's so easy now to fake it, to fix it, to create something on the computer and then fix it. Especially the children of our fans can appreciate that this is the real thing, it's analog, not digital, there's no tracks, no tapes, not playing to a soundtrack. Not Milli Vanilli. A lot of young people are into the '80s. It's been a popular era in music. One of the last eras of real, analog music before digital took over."