10 Farewell Tours That Didn’t Stick
Take a look at the summer concert docket this year – or any year, really – and you might catch yourself thinking, “Didn’t these guys do a farewell tour already?” The answer, inevitably, will be, “Yes.” In the coming months alone, Motley Crue will be playing sheds around the country, but they also finished up The Final Tour in 2015. That same year, Rush confirmed the R40 Live Tour was to be their swan song, but recently launched a run dubbed Fifty Something, which will stretch well into 2027.
For many artists, a farewell tour is supposed to be exactly that, a final chance for fans to see them before calling it a career. The reality is, plenty of musicians have announced their “last” tour, only to change their minds a few years later. Excuses that they missed performing, needed the paycheck, or simply weren’t ready to quit all lead to the conclusion that retirement in the music business often comes with an asterisk.
Over the years, there have been so many artists who have tearfully said their goodbyes while cashing in on an unsuspecting audience who thinks this might be the last time they will get to see said act, only to find out years later they’ve been hoodwinked when some sort of “comeback tour” is announced. Right now, there’s a slew of artists across all genres on the road or about to head out on what’s being called their last tour. Journey, Megadeth, the Eagles, Ministry, Little Feat, and so many more are offering up a final chance to see them live. When their respective dates come to a close, will that really be it? All we can say is: buyer beware.
Here are 10 farewell tours that turned out not to be goodbye at all, from classic rock legends to heavy metal icons. Some were back on the road within a year or two, while others stayed retired long enough for fans to believe it really was the end…until another reunion was announced.
10
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra was one of the early artists to pull the “I’m finished” shenanigans, revealing in early 1971 that he would be retiring at the age of 55; not just from performing, but public life as well. Other than a pair of charity commitments that year, he was adamant about being done with the stage and retiring to Palm Springs. At a gala for the Motion Picture & Television Fund on June 13 in Los Angeles, he performed a dress rehearsal set at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion during the day, and in front of a star-studded audience that night in the Ahmanson Theatre. Sinatra closed the performance with the jazz standard “Angel Eyes” and dramatically stepped away from the microphone as he said the final line, “Excuse me while I disappear…”
But unlike an exorcised ghost, the Chairman of the Board couldn’t stay away from the limelight, chalking it up to the pressure he received to return. “Mail, phone calls…just talking to people,” were just some of the reasons he said during 1973 rehearsals for the television special ‘Ol Blue Eyes Is Back, which a new album was titled, too. The studio effort was panned but had no bearing on the desire from audiences to see Sinatra live, and he would continue to appear on stage until 1995.
9
Kiss
Image via Everett CollectionCome 2001, music fans were a bit savvier towards the idea of a goodbye jaunt, doing a collective eye roll when Kiss announced they were going to hang up the platforms and spandex. It took less than two years for that to last, with frontman Paul Stanley later rewriting history by claiming it was meant to be a farewell to the original lineup.
The tour itself was fraught with drama, from drummer Peter Criss letting his contract expire before it ended and guitarist Ace Frehley exiting the band following the final date. Two years later, with half of Kiss masquerading as originals, and Aerosmith onboard as a co-headliner, nostalgia brought overly forgiving audiences out in droves, because you never know when it’s really going to be the last time. For Kiss, that night was December 2, 2023 at the final date of the End of the Road Tour.
Then, last fall, they played three nights of the Kiss Kruise Landlocked in Vegas. How? Because that End of the Road Tour was simply the last with the makeup on. Of course.
8
Elton John
The first time Elton John retired came in front of a stunned audience at Wembley Stadium in November 1977 when he said, “I’ve made a decision that tonight is going to be the last show. There’s more to me than playing on the road.” When he was back tickling the ivories less than two years later, he attributed the announcement to being burned out, and “I was fed up with myself musically.”
“I was stale and stagnant as far as my piano playing went, and vocally I hadn’t improved in three or four years,” John said while promoting his return in 1979. “I could see the touring going on and on, and I thought there just has to be something better than this.”
Years later, he would chalk the move up to his over-the-top drug use. In 2018, John began the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, playing more than 300 shows before it concluded in 2023. He did leave the door open to doing a residency one day, but no more touring; it had become too much of a pain.
Then tickets went on sale earlier this month for two stadium dates in Mexico City. And John has hardly quit playing – averaging about eight shows a year, from corporate events to fundraisers to the rare public gig – but still no full-scale return. To date.
7
The Who
Drummer Keith Moon’s death in 1978 effectively put a period at the end of The Who’s career, though they carried on for a few years with Faces drummer Kenney Jones before calling it quits. Guitarist Pete Townshend said he wanted to focus on his solo career, adding that The Who would continue only as a studio act, when a farewell tour was announced in 1982.
Aside from one-off appearances at Live Aid in 1985 and the 1988 Brit Awards, the band stayed off the road until The Kids Are Alright 25th anniversary tour in 1989, where Townshend tested the stupidity of the concert-going public by insisting The Who hadn’t actually reunited.
“We did our farewell tour,” he said. “We said goodbye… We’re not a group as such anymore. We’ve actually come together, especially, for a 25th birthday party.”
It would be another nine years before The Who toured again, and they never really stopped after that, despite the death of bassist John Entwistle and repeated claims that each new run of dates would positively, probably, be the last.
“The touring is incredibly grinding on the body, and we have to draw a line in the sand somewhere,” singer Roger Daltrey said ahead of 2014’s The Who Hits 50! tour. “This will be the last old-fashioned, big tour.”
Then, last year, the band completed The Song Is Over, solemnly dubbed a “bittersweet final tour” of North America. We’ll see about that.
6
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Image via Robert Bell/INSTARimagesLynyrd Skynyrd had earned a little more grace than most bands because of a deeply complicated history. The original group didn’t end because of egos or burnout, but a tragic 1977 plane crash that killed frontman Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and his sister, backup singer Cassie Gaines, and left the rest of the members physically and emotionally scarred for life. Nobody expected anything but the end of the Southern rock outfit for good. A decade later, the surviving members reunited with Ronnie’s younger brother, Johnny, handling vocals for what was billed as a tribute tour. That was supposed to be it. Instead, fans kept buying tickets, and Skynyrd kept coming around.
Thirty years later, the group announced the Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour, saying this really would be the final lap. Down to just one original member in guitarist Gary Rossington, one would hope so. Then the pandemic happened, and a good chunk of dates were postponed. When they picked back up, the tour had a new name: the Big Wheels Keep on Turnin’ Tour. And dates kept getting added. When Rossington died in 2023, the band didn’t skip a beat, headlining the Florida Strawberry Festival one week later. These days, it’s pretty clear there’ll never be a Lynyrd Skynyrd farewell tour since ticket sales are still strong for a tribute act in everything but name.
5
Ozzy Osbourne
Image via YouTubeComing on the heels of one of his best-received solo efforts, 1991’s No More Tears, Ozzy Osbourne announced that the road jaunt to support it, cleverly dubbed No More Tours, would be his last. The reasoning was that he wanted to spend more time with his family, and – though unknown at the time – he had been misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
While it would’ve been quite a commercial high to go out on, the Ozzman quite finished, launching the Retirement Sucks! tour a few short years later, followed by a full-scale reunion with his bandmates in Black Sabbath. Once the Godfathers of Heavy Metal finished their own final run in 2017, Osbourne went to the well again with No More Tours II.
An unfortunate cocktail of medical maladies and the COVID-19 pandemic brought the trek to an end after just 41 shows. Luckily, fans – and Ozzy – were able to say a proper goodbye with the historic Back to the Beginning show in England last summer as the Prince of Darkness did short solo and Sabbath sets. Just over two weeks later, he was dead. Sad as it was, there was a certain poetry in the way it ended.
4
Nine Inch Nails
Trent Reznor never really did the whole “this is the last tour ever” routine. That’s probably because he’s always been a bit too smart to paint himself into that type of corner. Instead, he announced the 2009 Wave Goodbye tour and said Nine Inch Nails would be disappearing “for a while.” He had recently begun turning more of his attention to film scores, so it sounded believable enough.
The break lasted about four years.
By 2013, Nine Inch Nails was back with a revamped lineup and a world tour, and Reznor was saying he’d been thinking about the band more than he’d expected. Since then, the group has alternated between touring, disappearing again, releasing new music, and disappearing some more. Recently, NIN completed the wildly acclaimed Peel It Back Tour. Towards the end of the dates earlier this year, Reznor once again hinted that the band might be done at its conclusion but cleared it up in mid-March at the final show in Sacramento.
“What I said was, this is the last show of this tour, and we don’t have any shows booked, and we don’t have any plans to book any shows any time in the future so far,” he said from the stage. “That doesn’t mean we may not tour again. We may tour again. It won’t be next month; it won’t be this year. I never said we were intentionally stopping, and I never meant that.”
3
Garth Brooks
Country crossover superstar Garth Brooks announced he was tired of ropin’ the wind back in 2000, ostensibly to raise his three young daughters. There wasn’t much drama attached to it, as he simply decided he’d rather be a father than miss his children grow up. But the problem is, the kids eventually get big and want nothing to do with dad, and, within five years, Brooks was back performing select dates and even did a loosely structured Las Vegas residency.
Brooks was back at it for real by 2014, launching a stadium-sized comeback tour alongside his wife, fellow country star Trisha Yearwood. It didn’t take long for him to start breaking attendance records all over again, proving there was still a massive audience waiting. He added in a more traditional Vegas residency, and this year has begun rolling out dates for the Blame It All on My Roots Arena Tour.
2
Judas Priest
Image via INFevents.comNot even a decade after Rob Halford returned to Judas Priest, the band decided to end it for good in a yearlong world tour. Billed as the band’s final major trek after more than four decades on the road, the Epitaph World Tour was largely believed to be it for the group. Guitarist Glenn Tipton said they wanted to go out while they could still perform at a high level, and fans believed them.
They shouldn’t have.
Barely two years after wrapping up the run, Priest released the Redeemer of Souls album and were back on the road again. More albums followed, including the critically acclaimed Firepower and 2024’s Invincible Shield, along with plenty of tour dates proving the Metal Gods aren’t quite ready to hang it up. In a slight gesture of fairness, the band later clarified Epitaph was meant to be the last world tour, not the last tour, period. That’s a distinction scores of fans probably didn’t appreciate when they bought tickets thinking they were saying goodbye.
1
Motley Crue
When Motley Crue announced The Final Tour in 2014, it was expectedly theatrical in saying there wouldn’t be a next time. A binding legal “Cessation of Touring Agreement” stating they would never tour again under the Motley Crue name made sure of it. The prop gravestones featuring each member’s name on them drove the point home.
“It’s not gonna be like a Kiss farewell to the farewell to the farewell to the farewell tour,” singer Vince Neil said. “It won’t be like that. We’re not going to say farewell and then try to get people to come back again in a little while.”
Then they did exactly that. Less than four years later, in late 2019, the Crue revealed they’d be back on the road with The Stadium Tour, alongside co-headliners Def Leppard and support from Poison and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts. The reasoning was due to the unexpected success of the Netflix biopic The Dirt, there was an overwhelming demand to see the group live. Combined with the lure of performing in stadiums for the first time, co-founding bassist Nikki Sixx said it was impossible to resist returning. He then stated that he’d like to see Motley continue until their 50th anniversary in 2031.
