How Many Times Can ‘Farewell’ Be Said?

The answer to that headline, if you’re a music fan, should be “As many as they want…because people will keep paying. That’s just one of the points made in my latest piece for Collider, 10 Farewell Tours That Didn’t Stick. And, yes, I’m aware there’s a Rolling Stone article with a very similar headline. Whoops.

Along with millions of concertgoers, I too have fallen for the “farewell tour” trope, including the Mötley Crüe Final Tour. And the Kiss Farewell Tour in 2000. It’s almost driven by the fear of loss, this need to see an act on what really, could be, quite possibly, probably not, the last time you may ever get a chance to see them.

Frank Sinatra, Ozzy Osbourne, Garth Brooks, and Judas Priest might make strange bedfellows, but they’ve got something in common in that each has embarked on what was billed as their goodbye to the stage.

Below is the first track from The Last Kiss DVD. They’d go on to tour for another 25 years.