American stars announced for Cork's Marquee next summer

American rock band Toto will play the tented venue in Cork next summer

Toto have announced two Irish gigs next summer, including in Cork and Dublin.

American rock band Toto has announced two Irish dates as part of their 50th anniversary celebrations.

The band, consisting of Steve Lukather (guitar, vocals) and Joseph Williams (vocals), joined by Warren Ham (horns, percussion, vocals), John Pierce (bass), Keith Carlock (drums), Dennis Atlas (keyboards, vocals) and Rai Thistlethwayte (keyboards, vocals), will play Dublin’s 3Arena on June 16 and Cork’s Live at the Marquee on June 17 next year.

American singer-songwriter Todd Rudgreen will join the Africa singers as the special guest at their Irish gigs.

The gigs will mark 50 years of the band, whose founding line-up came together for the first time at Davlen Studios in North Hollywood, California, on January 7, 1977.

They began tracking demos that would become the band’s debut album, which led to co-founders David Paich and Jeff Porcaro, alongside Steve Lukather, Bobby Kimball, Steve Porcaro and David Hungate, launching a career that remains celebrated almost half a century later.

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Columbia Records released the band’s self-titled debut in October 1978. Hydra followed in 1979, and Turn Back in 1981, before the release of Toto IV in 1982, which won six Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year, Album of the Year and Producer of the Year.

Isolation (1984), Fahrenheit (1986), The Seventh One (1988), Kingdom of Desire (1992), Tambu (1995) and Mindfields (1999) followed, and the band continued to release new material periodically, including Through The Looking Glass (2002), Falling In Between (2006), Toto XIV (2015) and Old Is New (2018).

The band’s cumulative streams exceed nine billion plays, while their largest hit, Africa, has two billion plays on Spotify alone.

Toto will celebrate 50 years of the band in 2027.

Africa has also been certified Diamond by the RIAA, with cumulative sales now approaching 11 million.

Hold The Line has been certified triple platinum for sales of three million copies, while Rosanna hit double platinum for sales of two million copies.

Throughout 2025 and 2026, Toto performed for more than 850,000 ticket holders across the globe. 2027 will see them tour Japan and Europe.

Tickets for the Irish gigs will go on sale Friday at 9am. Visit here for more information.