Rod Stewart has announced that his next tour will be his last. Rod Stewart: The Final Encore, an arena tour of the UK and Europe, starts in April 2027, and with it the 81-year-old singer will end more than six decades of life on the road.
The UK leg takes in Belfast, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester and London. After a long run through Europe, the tour ends in Hanover, Germany, in July. Stewart has not ruled out playing one-off shows afterwards, but he has said the touring side of his career is over.
"The time has come to say farewell to life on the road. After more than six decades, The Final Encore will most definitely be my last," Stewart said, promising fans "one hell of a show".
"I've been singing the music I love since I was 19 years old, and I've had the privilege of taking it around the world to all of you. It has given me a life beyond anything I could ever have imagined, and I hope I've given you some fond memories in return. So, may I take this opportunity to thank you for making this extraordinary life possible."
(From left) Judy Collins, Don McLean
A difficult run of health problems
The announcement follows a stretch in which illness repeatedly disrupted his shows. Stewart's US farewell tour, One Last Time, was hit several times. In June this year he postponed concerts at Red Rocks, Colorado, because of inflamed vocal cords. During a concert in Utah he stopped the show and used an oxygen mask after nearly fainting on stage. He later cancelled the rest of the tour after undergoing a heart procedure.
In 2025, earlier on the same tour, he cancelled concerts because of flu, Covid and strep throat, and to rest his voice. His appearance in the legends slot at Glastonbury that year also looked in doubt because of flu, but he went ahead with it.
A Guardian review of that period said he was "in good voice, especially given he cancelled gigs … It helps that he's never had a clear or stereotypically youthful voice to begin with; the years show, mostly, in his struggle to sustain long notes."
The postponed Red Rocks dates have been moved to September 2027, which means Stewart's last scheduled live shows will come after The Final Encore has ended.
From harmonica to the top of the charts
Stewart has been touring since his teens. In the early 1960s he travelled across Europe with a harmonica in a duo with the folk singer Wizz Jones, a trip that ended with his deportation from Spain for vagrancy.
He went on to move between groups including Jimmy Powell & the Five Dimensions, Steampacket and Shotgun Express before joining the Jeff Beck Group and then Faces. His solo career took off at the end of the 1960s.
Every Picture Tells a Story topped the charts in 1971. Of the 29 studio albums he has released since then, all but one have reached the UK Top 10. The latest, Swing Fever, made with Jools Holland in 2024, went to No 1.
He may not be finished in the studio. On Desert Island Discs, Stewart said he and his former Faces bandmate Ronnie Wood had "songs that we're working on from back in the day, but it's hard to make our times tally. When we do get a chance to get in the studio again, we will finish off these songs. We've got a good body of songs going.”
A crowded season of goodbyes
Stewart is one of several veteran acts to announce farewell tours. Don McLean, 80 and best known for American Pie, will play eight UK and Ireland dates on The Farewell Tour in May 2027.
The final night comes exactly 55 years after McLean first played the Albert Hall in 1972. "I love these audiences. They have kept me going for 55 years and given me a career I could not have had anywhere else," McLean said. "A troubadour has to make his farewells somewhere, and I would rather choose the place myself. The Albert Hall was the first room that ever felt like it belonged to me, and it seems right that it should be the last."
His sets will draw on songs from across his career, from early numbers such as Castles In The Air and And I Love You So to material from American Boys, his 22nd studio album, released in May 2024.
Judy Collins, 87, is touring the US on the Sweet Judy Blue Eyes Farewell Tour 2026-2027. The tour is named after the song Stephen Stills wrote about her almost six decades ago. Collins, who had a top 10 hit in 1968 with the Joni Mitchell song Both Sides Now, has not set an end date.
"No, it is a farewell tour. You know, I've been doing this for 67 years," Collins told Variety. She said she still loves touring but has other commitments, including writing a couple of new books and a stage show for which she has written all the music. "And, it's time," she said.
Megadeth have announced Breakout: Hibernation of the Nations, a UK and European leg of their farewell tour for spring 2027, with Black Label Society and Testament as support acts. It begins in Belfast on March 9, takes in Paris, Oslo, Berlin and Milan, and ends in Lisbon on April 13. Frontman Dave Mustaine has previously said he wants the farewell tour to run for three to five years so that fans around the world get the chance to see the band. The band's self-titled album, which is also its last, was its first No 1 on the Billboard 200.
Journey have added 40 North American dates to their Final Frontier farewell tour, which began in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on February 28. The new leg runs from Los Angeles on September 12 to San Francisco on November 28. More dates are planned for 2027, and the band has not yet decided where the final show will be. "The energy has been incredible every night," founder and guitarist Neal Schon said.
When rock was young, few performers expected to be on stage in their seventies or eighties. In 1972 the talk show host Dick Cavett asked Mick Jagger, then 29, whether he could see himself performing at 60. "Easily," Jagger replied, and the studio audience laughed.
Stewart first went on the road with a harmonica and was deported from Spain on that trip. The Final Encore is due to finish in Hanover in July 2027.