Squeeze Frontman Glenn Tilbrook Playing in Amagansett

In the current calendar year, Glenn Tilbrook has been quite the road dog. Since the beginning of 2025, Tilbrook and his Squeeze bandmates spent some time opening on a leg of the Heart tour. From there, he decamped to Houston, where the Squeeze founding member connected with Daryl Hall and his band, opening for the former on his tour while also stealing time away to do solo dates. Between Hall and Heart, Tilbrook, with and without Squeeze, has opened/co-headlined with a number of disparate acts including Boy George, The Psychedelic Furs and an arena tour in the UK alongside ska legends Madness last December. Playing such a self-described “tumble dryer of different shows” is a role the sexagenarian singer-songwriter says he’s happy to embrace as part of Squeeze or as a solo act.

“We’ve taken the view that it’s good to open for as many different people as possible to let their audiences see what we can do,” Difford said. “Our audience has been building. At this late stage, our audience is still growing. In the UK, Squeeze has only just done their first arena shows ever and it’s quite something for us. We’re just trying to pick up other audiences who think they know what Squeeze is. We show some of it, but they don’t really know what we are.”

Tilbrook’s current touring situations finds him playing solo dates as well as opening for Hall, who the power pop veteran first met when Squeeze opened for the latter and his former creative partner John Oates when they were on what became their final tour a few years back. Tilbrook’s admiration for Hall dates back to when “She’s Gone” landed on the UK charts in 1976.

“When ‘She’s Gone’ suddenly got radio play, I was absolutely nuts about that song,” Tilbrook recalled. “What I’ve found in being with Daryl and opening up for him is that while we’re very different, there are still quite a lot of similarities musically in terms of what we’ve listened to and what’s inspired us. I can hear that in his music and my music.”

The Daryl Hall tour has an unusual wrinkle for Tilbrook as he’ll be borrowing the headliner’s band to back him up when opens the show on dates that includes a July 23 stop at Huntington’s Paramount.

“I’ve put all my time into Squeeze over the past 10 years—it’s been pretty unfailing,” Tilbrook said. “With Daryl’s band, I’m playing quite a bit of my solo stuff and it’s great to hear that fleshed out by their musicality. Their band is very different from Squeeze and I’m loving the difference. If you go into any situation, you wonder what the best is that can come out of it given the tools you have. That band is an immaculate bunch of musicians and it’s a pleasure and privilege to play with them.”

But for the London native, the next local stop he’s going to be making is at Stephen Talkouse on April 10. It’s a venue he’s grown to love dating back to the first time he played the club back in the early ‘90s. It’s become enough of a family custom that one of his four sons, who are all musicians, will also be on the bill.

“I’m here with my son Leon Tilbrook, who is opening up,” Tilbrook said with a hint of pride. “He opened at the Talkhouse for a couple of people last year. The thing is, we love playing Stephen Talkhouse. It’s one of those places that’s been on our radar the whole time. It’s been ongoing and lovely to continue that association. I’ve done a bunch of solo shows there. Leon is carrying on in that tradition as he’s played there like six or seven times now.

Since Squeeze came over to the United States for the first time in 1978, Tilbrook has been humbled and grateful for the reception he’s received every time. Being part of a heritage act, he’s noticed how the band’s audience has evolved. While he admits advances like streaming has “…become another criminal enterprise where artists miraculously don’t get paid…,” he admits that it’s provided a gateway to people who might not otherwise be familiar with his band.

“Streaming has opened up our audience in a way that would never have happened where we signed to a label,” Tilbrook said. “The label decides who they’ve going to push and when they’re going to push us. Or conversely, you’re not worth pushing or your time is done, like it occurred to us. We’ve seen our audience grow and I attribute that directly, not only to us being good, but for the availability of our catalog to younger people, who don’t have any sort of barriers about when music was made. They’re just interested in the music and whether they like it or not. I don’t think any other service would done that for us. I don’t think radio could have done that for us. TV could not do that for us, but streaming did.”

Glenn Tilbrook will be appearing on April 10 at Stephen Talkhouse, 61 Main Street, Amagansett. For more information, visit stephentalkhouse.com or call 631-267-3117.