Rob Thomas is the Zelig of the music industry.
Over the past 30 years, the three-time Grammy winner fronted Matchbox 20, collaborated with Carlos Santana on “Smooth,” had a solo career all of his own and re-entered the zeitgeist when Greta Gerwig wrote his 1997 song “Push” into “Barbie.”
“It’s funny,” Thomas, 53, told The Post in an exclusive interview.
“When you’re younger and think about having a long career, you think about success in short, little terms. You don’t think about the long haul. You don’t think about being around long enough to become someone’s nostalgia.”
On Saturday, Jan. 17, the Florida native will embrace his newfound elder statesman status — his 27-year-old son is his guitarist these days — when he performs a solo show playing deep cuts for “home game fans” of his at Atlantic City’s Hard Rock Hotel and Casino as part of his Sidewalk Angels Foundation series that provides critically needed funds and support to over 20 no-kill animal shelters and animal rescues across the country.
“When my band and I do these Sidewalk Angels shows, they are for a much-more initiated type of fan,” Thomas explained. “We’ve been going through the archives and pulling out songs I haven’t played in 15 years because I know there’s going to be a group of people that are really going to appreciate it.”
Thomas’ upcoming concerts come on the heels of his 2025 ‘All Night Days Tour,’ named after his recently-released album that shares a name with the tour and before a Matchbox Twenty festival run later this summer.
Throw in his March gig at Carnegie Hall performing at a one-night-only ‘Music of Billy Joel’ show and his status as a modern Zelig that does a little bit of everything while seemingly being everywhere is more apparent than ever.
Still, that doesn’t mean you should take seeing the tireless hitmaker live for granted.
“There’s something you’re going to like at our show,” he said. “There’s something you forgot you like. There’s something you didn’t realize that you were going to like.”
For more information, we have everything you need to know and more about Rob Thomas’ 2026 Sidewalk Angels Tour along with an extended interview that includes his thoughts on “Smooth”and a story about the craziest thing that’s happened at a show of his.
You’ll want to scroll to find out what that one is.
Rob Thomas tickets
Inventory to see Rob Thomas live is available on all verified ticketing sites.
We recommend checking out StubHub, Ticketmaster, Vivid Seats and GameTime to find the seats that makes the most sense for you.
Rob Thomas tour schedule 2026
Should you catch a ‘Sidewalk Angels’ evening, you’ll see Thomas in an acoustic four-piece band. The other members are his son, music director and their player.
A complete calendar including all of their North American tour dates, venues and links to buy tickets can be found below.
Matchbox 20 tour schedule 2026
In our interview, Thomas told us “the end of 2026 marks the beginning of the 30th anniversary of our first record. So, we’re doing a lot of festivals, and one-offs to get stuff together so we can plan for what the end of 2026 and then all of 2027 look like.”
At the time of publication, the only fest scheduled is Saint Paul’s Minnesota Yacht Club, which takes place at Harriet Island from July 17-19.
Fellow headliners include The Strokes, The Lumineers, The Black Keys, Lord Huron, Geese and more.
Sound like a bucket list experience?
Snag single or multi-day Minnesota Yacht Club passes here.
About Matchbox’s live performances, Thomas said “this sounds like a weird humblebrag, but we wanted to put in new songs. We have singles we wouldn’t play because we don’t want a Matchbox concert to feel like a revue show.”
Music of Billy Joel 2026 concert
Carnegie Hall is the place to be for Billy Joel fans on March 12.
That evening, the legendary venue will host ‘The Music of Billy Joel” featuring artists like Rufus Wainwright, Gavin DeGraw, O.A.R.’s Marc Roberge, Train’s Pat Monahan and Joel’s daughter Alexa Ray Joel (along with Thomas, who confirmed he was playing “Vienna”).
If you’d like to be at the benefit show that will raise funds for music programs for underserved children in New York City, you can grab tickets for ‘The Music of Billy Joel’ at Carnegie Hall here.
Rob Thomas set list
Although Thomas will likely mix things up for his ‘Sidewalk Angels’ concerts, here’s a look at what he took to the stage at one of his final ‘All Night Days’ concerts in New Zealand on Nov. 15, 2025, according to Set List FM.
01.) “I Believe It”
02.) “Give Me the Meltdown”
03.) “Can’t Help Me Now”
04.) “Her Diamonds”
05.) “Cradlesong”
06.) “Heaven Help Me”
07.) “Mockingbird”
08.) “If You’re Gone” (Matchbox Twenty song)
09.) “Hard to Be Happy”
10.) “Someday”
11.) “Getting Late / That’s All Right”
12.) “…Something to Be”
13.) “Little Wonders”
14.) “Unwell” (Matchbox Twenty song)
15.) “3 AM” (Matchbox Twenty song)
16.) “Streetcorner Symphony”
17.) “Lonely No More”
18.) “I Am an Illusion”
Encore
19.) “All Night Days”
20.) “Under Pressure” (Queen & David Bowie cover)
21.) “Smooth” (Santana cover)
22.) This Is How a Heart Breaks
Rob Thomas interview
We spoke to Thomas for a half hour about his new record, what’s up with Matchbox Twenty, wild stories from live shows and what he thinks about his most successful songs.
Tell me about “All Night Days.”
I never make a record where I set out to do something like an all-electronic album or all-rock album. I write all the time, and when I feel like I’ve got enough songs together that I think people should hear, I go, “well, that’s an album.”
I also like having one producer the entire thing because if you’re going to have a record that thematically feels like it’s all over the place, then it’s good to have some sort of consistency.
Some of this record I had been sitting on since 2021 because I thought I was going to be making a new album sooner. But, luckily, some of those songs that were going to be on that record got moved away and I wrote what I thought were better songs.
What is the album about to you?
There’s a lot of themes that have to do with unapologetically getting older. I’m in my mid-fifties now. I used to write songs about being young forever and then I wrote songs about how it sucked to get old.
Recently, I got to a point where I started realizing what a gift being older is. If you’ve lost friends along the way, you realize that it’s a gift not everyone gets afforded. So you start to really appreciate whatever comes with the age.
What’s touring with your son Maison like?
He’s legitimately one of my best friends. He’s 27, so he’s just a guy.
He’s just a phenomenal musician. I honestly didn’t know if he was going to want to play with me. He has his own band, The Lucky, that he performs with out in L.A.
Not everybody would jump at the offer to spend a year hanging out with a bunch of middle-aged guys playing music but he’s been really enjoying it and has been shining onstage.
It’s been a good opportunity for him to be around that group of players too because they’re legit pros who perform with artists like Alicia Keys and Ed Sheeran.
For him to spend that time cutting his teeth with those guys was really key…and, of course, with a songwriter of my caliber (laughs).
What do the Matchbox guys do when you go on a solo tour?
I just pack them back in the crate and unpack them later.
No, drummer Paul Doucette does a lot of film scoring. He does the music for the Apple TV show “For All Mankind.”
Kyle Cook, our guitarist, produces stuff in Nashville and was actually out touring with John Waite because they’re really good friends.
And Pookie (bassist Brian Yale) manages his money well, so he just plays golf.
I’m not being glib but at the beginning of me doing solo stuff, there was a big point of contention between us as a band because it obviously meant that if I’m out doing something, we are not doing something.
Once we started to figure out the rhythm though, then it wasn’t such a big deal. It just became a workaround.
Nowadays, we sit down at the beginning of every year and decide what we want to do. Actually, we’re going to have that exact meeting on Zoom soon.
We do know that we want to play festivals and get ourselves in front of new people that aren’t familiar with us.
I personally think 2023’s “Where The Light Goes” is Matchbox’s best record.
That’s probably my favorite record since “More Than You Think You Are.”
We always consider ourselves a live band first. So we really wanted to try and get some of whatever that energy is onto a record. We also really wanted to try and keep everything positive and make something that was about unity and about love. In a way, we were trying to shed that ’90s-manufactured angst and cynicism that can follow you if you’re not careful.
Over 30 years of touring, what’s the craziest thing that’s happened at a live show of yours?
I was on the piano at one of these acoustic shows and playing a really slow version of “3 a.m.” when a fistfight broke out in the middle of the song.
People get engaged at shows. People have sex at shows. Luckily, as we got older, people stopped throwing underwear because you’re either too old or too young to do it. I remember the last time some young girl put her top up, we were all like, “we have daughters. Don’t do that!”
What’s your relationship with “Smooth?”
It’s weird. It’s so all-encompassing. It’s the reason why Carlos Santana and I are such good friends. We talk at least once a week. If we’re on the road at the same time, we talk every night and send each other pictures of the shows. We’re always sending each other music.
That being said, I’m also not going to go out and just be the guy that wheels out and plays “Smooth” again.
The song has a life of its own. The other day I heard a version of Nuno Bettencourt playing it. I’ve heard a punk bands do it. I’ve heard country artists do it. It’s cool to be a part of something like that but if that had been the only song that I’d ever done, It would have eaten me up inside.
If I meet somebody anywhere in the world and they say, “oh, I love that song,” I’m surprised if they’re not talking about “Smooth.”
Post-“Barbie,” have you found a new generation of fans?
Yeah. A lot of a lot of young fans started showing up to Matchbox shows in pink shirts that say “Push.”
Speaking of that, I actually recently got a chance to talk to Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach about “Push” at a “Jay Kelly” screening I went to with Mark Ronson.
They were like “how did you take the song being in the movie?” and I was like “I didn’t know I was the soundtrack for the patriarchy” but then after listening to Greta talk about the song — who had a real affection for “Push” growing up — she made me look at a character like Ken in a deeper way. He was young, not that bright and didn’t know how to express himself so he used songs like “Push” and I was like, “that was me in my early twenties.”
The only bad thing about the experience was that it could have been a really good career opportunity for Matchbox because it was such a big thing but it happened during the writers’ strike. So, we were on tour and weren’t allowed to talk about it at all because we’re AFTRA. So all these people would want to do interviews and talk about “Barbie” and we had to say “we can’t talk about Barbie” and they were like “OK, we’re good then.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Rob Thomas new music
On Sept. 5, Thomas released his sixth studio album “All Night Days.”
As noted above, the 11-track record is an impressive mishmash of sounds. Thomas embraces upbeat pop (“Hand In My Hand,” “Hard To Be Happy,” “Machine”), hard-charging rock (“All Night Days”), ebullient gospel (“I Believe It”), ’80s synth anthems (“Picture Perfect”), earthy soul (“No Good At Loving You”) and even throws in a few vulnerable ballads (“Thrill Me,” “Losing My Mind,” “Back To The Start”).
Then, there’s the unclassifiable “Ghost,” which melds Latin horns and nimble industrial rock to create a completely unique sound.
From track to track, the creative singer-songwriter never fails to surprise.
To hear for yourself, you can find the sonically expansive “All Night Days” here.
Huge ’90s stars on tour in 2026
Yearning for the Beanie Baby era? Miss dial-up?
If so, here are just five of our favorite artists from way back before the turn of the Millennium who might be coming to a city near you these next few weeks.
• Cake
Who else is on the road? Take a look at our list of all the biggest artists on tour in 2026 to find the show of your dreams.
This article was written by Matt Levy, New York Post live events reporter. Levy stays up-to-date on all the latest tour announcements from your favorite musical artists and comedians, as well as Broadway openings, sporting events and more live shows – and finds great ticket prices online. Since he started his tenure at the Post in 2022, Levy has reviewed a Bruce Springsteen concert and interviewed Melissa Villaseñor of SNL fame, to name a few. Please note that deals can expire, and all prices are subject to change.
