The Wiggles Reunite Former Band The Cockroaches For Tour

The Wiggles are getting the band back together. No, it’s not going to be a wiggle-off between the original lineup and the current next-gen edition of the highly successful children’s entertainers (though wouldn’t that be something?).

Instead, original member ‘Wake Up’ Jeff Fatt and Anthony ‘Blue Wiggle’ Field are reforming their old band The Cockroaches for two headline gigs this June to commemorate the release of a new greatest hits compilation.

Before they were raking in millions and touring relentlessly as The Beatles of kids’ music, Fatt and Field – along with his brothers John and Paul – spent the 80s in one of “the hardest working band[s] in Australia”, as Sydney’s Daily Telegraph dubbed The Cockroaches in 1988 “on account of the number of live shows they performed.” Averaging 300 gigs in a year, according to Field.

“We grew up playing in the pubs and clubs of Australia,” says Anthony of the The Cockroaches’ rare reunion. “We were lucky to have had success in the 1980s,” adds his brother and lead vocalist Paul. “We were played on radio, performed on TV shows like Countdown and Hey, Hey It’s Saturday and had so much fun.”

Not only that, but their eponymous 1987 debut album debuted at #2 on the ARIA Charts at the time while Rolling Stone praised them as “the quintessential meat and mashed potatoes rock band” (long before The Wiggles’ penned ‘Hot Potato’), with the band’s chart successes including Top 40 hits such as ‘She’s The One’, ‘Some Kind Of Girl’, ‘Wait Up’, and ‘Double Shot of My Baby’s Love’. “We don’t know if we’ll ever do this again… Anthony is always away on tour and Jeff just turned 60!”

Those numbers are getting a new lease of life on Hey Let’s Go!: The Best Of The Cockroaches, a new compilation spanning 1984-1994 to be released on Friday 13th June (via ABC Music/Universal) the same day The Cockroaches’ complete back catalogue will also be made available digitally online.

The original lineup will then take the stage at Sydney’s Dee Why RSL for two special shows the following week, bringing the original lineup back together for the first time in 25 years.

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“We don’t know if we’ll ever do this again,” says guitarist and songwriter John Field. “Anthony is always away on tour and Jeff just turned 60!” While the notoriously sleepy Purple Wiggle has promised “I’ll stay awake for this one.”