Music lovers in North Alabama will experience the 1980s in Huntsville’s Orion Amphitheater. The Totally Tubular Festival is a tour themed around the 1980s. The tour began earlier this year and features artists who were thrust into the spotlight when the television channel, MTV, put the artists’ music videos in constant rotation.
The concert’s lineup includes the bands Bow Wow Wow, Tommy Tutone and The Tubes alongside other artists.
Alex Craig, the production manager for the Orion Amphitheater, said the new medium for digesting music MTV provided was a good thing.
“Some of us are young enough, but still old enough to remember when MTV was music videos. And in those early days, in fact, the first music video that MTV ever played was Video Killed the Radio Star by the bubbles, which is ironic. But in my opinion, it didn't kill the Radio Star. MTV, just kind of added another platform and video and television,” Craig said.
The Orion Amphitheater is Huntsville’s newest venue. The amphitheater opened in 2022 and holds 8,000 people. The space was opened with the help of Mumford & Sons member Ben Lovett. Since its opening, the Orion has received acclaim for being a premier concert space by Billboard.
Craig said the construction of the Orion lends it to be the perfect event space for concerts like Totally Tubular Festival.
“What we do with the Orion that's a little different than most menus, is we kind of have a bigger campus. We're not just the facility itself. We've got a park outside the doors called Apollo Park, where we frequently host pre show and post show activations,” Craig explained. “And so having that extra space and the ability to kind of expand the footprint, so to speak, of a concert, makes it a great place for something like this, where it's more than just two or three bands, and it's more than just that hour and a half or two hours, it's kind of an extended day.”
The Totally Tubular Festival will be in the Rocket City July 12. Doors for the event open at 5:30 p.m. for more information visit the Orion Amphitheater website here.
