Rod Stewart has announced that his next tour will be his last. The 81-year-old singer has been touring since the early 1960s, when he set out across Europe with a harmonica – and ended up getting deported from Spain for vagrancy – in a duo with folk singer Wizz Jones. But while he hasn’t ruled out one-off gigs in the future, the touring element of his career is coming to an end with Rod Stewart: The Final Encore, a tour of the UK and Europe beginning April 2027.
The arena run includes UK dates in Belfast, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester and London, and after an extensive European run, finishes up in Hanover, Germany, in July. Promising “one hell of a show”, Stewart said: “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.
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.” Stewart still has a couple of live dates currently scheduled for after the end of the tour, in Red Rocks, Colorado, in September 2027.
Those are dates he was forced to reschedule from June this year, due to inflamed vocal cords. The June dates were part of One Last Time, his farewell tour of the US. He later paused a concert in Utah to use an oxygen mask after nearly fainting during the performance, then cancelled the remainder of the tour after undergoing a heart procedure.
Earlier on the One Last Time tour, in 2025, he had to cancel concerts due to flu, Covid and strep throat, and for needing vocal rest. It looked like his Glastonbury “legends slot” performance was at risk of cancellation due to flu, but he went through with the gig. A Guardian review described him as being “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.” It also heralded him as “a physical performer, writhing and launching around like one of the leggier Muppets”.
Stewart has been touring since his teens. After his duo with Jones, he spent time shuttling between groups such as Jimmy Powell & the Five Dimensions, Steampacket and Shotgun Express before joining the Jeff Beck Group, and then Faces. His solo career began in earnest at the close of the 1960s, and Stewart became a huge commercial success: after 1971’s chart-topping Every Picture Tells a Story, all but one of his 29 studio albums since have reached the UK Top 10.
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