Get out your sunglasses: Corey Hart going on tour after 20-year hiatus

Anticipation grew among the intimate crowd of fans, friends and family who gathered at a secret location just outside of downtown Toronto on Thursday night — a moment two decades in the making.

“I am very excited!” Canadian singer-songwriter Corey Hart told CityNews while discussing his upcoming cross-country arena tour and the release of his latest album.

“This is an exciting day for me. I am going out on tour, my first in 20 years, and releasing my first album in 20 years.”

The moment the ’80s heartthrob walked out on stage, the room was electric, with fans yelling, “I love you Corey!”

At one point, a fan even interrupted his set to give him a gift. It was as if he never left.

Hart is one of the most successful singer-songwriters in Canadian music history selling over 16 million albums. At one point, he was getting over 15,000 handwritten letters a week from fans.

During the peak of his career in 1997 following the birth of one of his four children, the Sunglasses At Night singer decided to step out of the spotlight. He took his family, including fellow musician Julie Masse, and moved them to Barbados.

“I’ve got four children and the youngest is 14,” he said. “And those early years of being there every day and waking up in the morning and doing homework, I didn’t want to miss out on those days.”

Now, it’s his children who have inspired him to go on tour again.

“They think it’s fun,” he said. “The first concert they came to was one I did at the Bell Centre in Montreal and they kept saying how it was so much fun.”

To help kick off the news, he released a new song called Another December, a song inspired by his late mother who once brought fans hot chocolate when they were waiting outside for one of his shows.

“It was the first song that I wrote for the record,” he said. “I wrote it last Christmas and it’s a very personal song I wrote for my mom. I lost her in 2014 and for the first two years I was still in shock that my mom wasn’t there.

“Literally, since I was a little boy I would speak to my mom every day, no matter where I was. At Christmas we would always spend it together. She loved Christmas so much. So, it’s a particularly melancholy time for me since she isn’t here. But it’s an uplifting song because I sing to her letting her know she should just rest in heaven knowing that we still celebrate Christmas and we still think of her, and her light is still shining through me.”

The next single Dreaming Time Again will be released Jan. 14, 2019, while the album of the same title will be released May 3.

Hart will be performing 16 shows across Canada for the Never Surrender Tour with stops in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton.

Tickets to the shows go on sale to the general public starting Dec. 7 at 10 a.m.