English singer and songwriter John Waite has announced he will return to Cincinnati, OH for a performance at Taft Theatre on Friday, October 2. John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band will support the show.
ABOUT JOHN WAITE
John Waite has spent nearly half a century refusing to mistake legacy for destination. Across multiple No. 1 hits, chart-topping bands, a celebrated solo career and decades on the road, the British singer-songwriter has continued to write, record and perform with the urgency of someone still chasing the next perfect song. His unmistakable voice — soulful, powerful and achingly recognizable — paired with a songwriter’s instinct for capturing longing, resilience and the complexities of everyday life, has helped define eras. But Waite’s story is less about longevity than persistence: an artist who has continued to evolve through triumph, reinvention and quiet reflection, resisting nostalgia in favor of forward motion.
Born in Lancaster, England, Waite first gained recognition in the late 1970s as the singer and bass player for The Babys. "Isn't It Time," from Broken Heart, and "Every Time I Think of You," from Head First, both climbed to #13 on the US Billboard Hot 100, with "Isn't It Time" reaching #1 in Australia and #4 in the Netherlands, and "Every Time I Think of You" hitting #6 in Australia and #8 in Canada. The band scored another Top 40 hit in 1980 with the driving rocker "Back on My Feet Again" from Union Jacks, before dissolving and sending Waite toward a solo career that accelerated with 1982's Ignition and reached international stardom with 1984's No Brakes.
Anchored by "Missing You," No Brakes produced one of the defining songs of the MTV era, sending Waite to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 while topping multiple U.S. charts. More than four decades later, the global anthem remains a force. Waite re-recorded the song in 2006 as a duet with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss for his album Downtown: Journey of a Heart and Krauss's A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection. The rendition spent 21 weeks on the Hot Country Songs chart. Following the release of Harlan Coben's #1 global hit series, Missing You on Netflix, the song exploded across social media and streaming algorithms, turning a 40-year-old rock anthem into a trending audio sensation. The song's deep integration into the plot provided perfect fuel for user-generated content, algorithmic discovery, and nostalgic music shares. The song instantly was programmed into Spotify and Apple Music top-tier playlists like Netflix Hub, TV Soundtrack Classics, and 80s Rock Anthems and reached #12 on the iTunes charts, underscoring its enduring cultural resonance with new generations of listeners. Today, the song has accumulated more than 275 million plays on Spotify and 75 million views on YouTube. Follow-up releases including “Tears,” “Every Step of the Way,” “If Anybody Had a Heart” and “These Times Are Hard for Lovers” further established Waite as one of rock’s most compelling vocalists and songwriters.
In 1989, Waite returned to the top of the charts as frontman of Bad English, whose Diane Warren-penned “When I See You Smile” became another No. 1 hit and propelled the band’s debut album to multi-platinum success.
Waite’s catalog has set the tone for iconic film, television, and video games. His work spans from the original track “In Dreams” in Quentin Tarantino's cult classic True Romance, to “Missing You,” which inspired the title and central mystery of Harlan Coben’s 2025 Netflix thriller Missing You. His songs have also driven hit movies like About Last Night, Vision Quest, Warm Bodies, and Anchorman 2. Beyond cinema, “Missing You” anchored the era-defining Grand Theft Auto: Vice City soundtrack, while his 1979 hit with The Babys, “Back on My Feet Again,” powered a massive Hanes national television campaign in 2025.
Yet chart success tells only part of the story. Across more than a dozen solo releases — from Temple Bar and Figure in a Landscape to Rough & Tumble, Wooden Heart and Best — Waite has continued to evolve, drawing from rock, folk, country and blues while remaining introspective, searching and resistant to easy categorization. That same restless spirit was explored in the critically acclaimed 2022 documentary John Waite: The Hard Way, an intimate and unvarnished portrait of an artist reflecting on nearly five decades in music.
Today, Waite remains what he has always been: a troubadour in motion. Performing extensively each year, he revisits his catalog not as nostalgia, but as living work: reshaped by experience, sharpened by time and delivered with the urgency that has defined his career. The songs endure. So does the voice.
