Totally Tubular: RiverEdge Turns Sunday Into a 1980s Time Machine

Sunday, Aug 16, Aurora's RiverEdge Park is going to smell like Aqua Net and sound like a mixtape your older cousin made in 1984. The Totally Tubular / 1980s Celebration lands on the Fox River with a bill so packed with new-wave and synth-pop names that it borders on absurd — in the best possible way.

The lineup, in full: Thomas Dolby, A Flock of Seagulls, The Motels, The Producers, Animotion, The Escape Club, Tommy Tutone, and The Lost Toy People. Read that again. That's not a nostalgia show; that's a nostalgia summit.

Let's give credit where it's due. Thomas Dolby — the man who blinded us with science and then went off to actually do some — remains one of synth-pop's genuine brains, and seeing him on a bill this size is a treat. A Flock of Seagulls will play the song, yes, and also the haircut will play itself. The Motels bring Martha Davis and a catalog ("Only the Lonely," "Suddenly Last Summer") that's aged better than the decade around it. Animotion, Tommy Tutone, The Escape Club — these are one-massive-hit acts, and on a package tour that's not a knock, it's the entire point. You came to sing the choruses. Everyone did.

Now, the honest part, because we don't do puff pieces here: a package like this is a curated exercise in memory, and memory is dated by design. Some of these names have rotating lineups, and "featuring an original member" is a phrase worth reading closely on any legacy bill. If you're expecting 1983 preserved in amber, adjust. If you're expecting a warm, loud, gloriously silly evening of songs welded permanently into your brain, you're going to have the time of your life.

And here's why it matters that it's happening here, on a lawn in Aurora, and not in some domed shed off a tollway two states away. RiverEdge came back this year rebuilt to 7,500 capacity — expanded lawn, new restrooms, a beverage pavilion, three jumbotrons — precisely so it could host sprawling, all-ages, all-afternoon events like this one. An eight-act '80s revue needs room to breathe, a big screen so the back rows can see the keytar solos, and a setting that feels like an event rather than an errand. The revived park delivers all three.

This is also, quietly, a smart booking. The single-headliner nights — your Beach Boys, your Gov't Mule — sell themselves. But a full-day genre package is how an amphitheater proves it's back for real: it draws the reunion crowd, the curious kids, and the people who just want a themed excuse to spend a Sunday by the river. That's a healthy scene doing healthy scene things.

Strategy notes: this is a lawn show at heart, so pack accordingly — sunscreen, a blanket you don't mind getting grass-stained, and the patience to let eight acts cycle through. Arrive early if you actually care about the openers; on package bills the surprises usually come before the names you recognize. Parking around Stolp Island tightens on big days, so build in a cushion and walk the riverfront in.

You don't have to take Metra downtown to relive the '80s. You have to take Broadway to Aurora, find a patch of lawn, and let A Flock of Seagulls do what a Flock of Seagulls does. Ran so far away, indeed — about as far as the Fox River. Close enough.

Sources: Aurora's revived RiverEdge Park announces summer lineup (Totally Tubular); RiverEdge Park