A farewell tour is the final lap of a career, announced with misty eyes, souvenir programmes and premium tickets, on the understanding that this really is goodbye. Pop history suggests reading the small print.
Kiss named their 2000 outing The Farewell Tour, kept going, and two decades later set off on another goodbye, the End of the Road World Tour, which ran from 2019 to 2023. Cream said farewell in 1968 and reunited for four nights at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2005, 37 years later. Status Quo called their 1984 tour End of the Road, then played Live Aid the following year and simply carried on. Aerosmith’s Aero-Vederci Baby tour of 2017 and 2018 was followed within about a year by a Las Vegas residency. None of this is a complaint: fans who bought a ticket to the last show ever usually get to buy several more. In rock, as at a good party, the end rarely comes when the host announces it.