Rod Stewart is coming off the road. On Monday the 81-year-old announced The Final Encore, a run of arena shows through Ireland, the UK and mainland Europe in the spring and summer of 2027, and he was unusually blunt about what it means. “My dear friends, the time has come to say farewell to life on the road,” he said in the announcement reported by Louder. “After more than six decades, The Final Encore will most definitely be my last.”
For a man who has been singing for a living since he was a teenager busking around Europe, that is a big sentence. It also arrives at the end of the hardest year of his touring life.
A year of canceled shows
The announcement makes more sense once you look back at 2026. Stewart’s calendar has been punctured again and again by illness. According to AXS TV, a sinus infection knocked out Las Vegas dates in May, laryngitis canceled a San Diego show in June, and he had to pause a concert in Utah to use an oxygen mask after nearly fainting on stage.
Then came the big one. On August 9 he underwent what his team called a routine coronary stent procedure to clear blocked arteries, and two days later the rest of his “One Last Time” US tour was scrapped, including a six-night stand at Caesars Palace. Doctors wanted four weeks of recovery.
His wife, Penny Lancaster, was upbeat about it at the time. She told AXS that he would “come back stronger than ever” and described him as having “a new lease of life,” while explaining that the doctors insisted on the cancellations because a Rod Stewart show is close to two hours of running around the stage, costume changes included. Stewart himself said he was “already feeling better and very much on the mend.”
So the question hanging over the last seven weeks was not whether he would perform again, but how much. Monday’s announcement is the answer: one more tour, then done.
What the tour looks like
The Final Encore opens on April 23, 2027 at the 3Arena in Dublin and closes on July 24 at the ZAG Arena in Hanover, Germany, according to Louder. In between are Belfast, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester and London, and European stops including Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Budapest, Munich, Prague and Kraków. Howard Jones supports on the UK and Ireland dates. A fan club presale opens September 29, with general sale on October 2.
American fans are not entirely left out. Far Out Magazine lists two nights at Red Rocks in Colorado on September 2 and 3, 2027, and the Guardian’s report says those are the shows rescheduled from June 2026, when inflamed vocal cords forced him to move them. Beyond Red Rocks, no new North American leg has been announced.
The reports do not quite agree on the details. Louder counts 25 dates, while the Guardian’s listing runs to 24. Far Out refers to the tour as “The Last Encore” in one place before using the official name. The tour’s own title and the dates on rodstewart.com are the ones to trust.
In his statement, Stewart kept the tone warm rather than mournful. “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,” he said, adding that he hoped fans would join him “so I can thank you the best way I know how… with the music and one hell of a show.”
Is this really goodbye?
Longtime fans will notice they have been here before. In November 2024, when he announced the end of large-scale world tours, Stewart told Fox News he had “no desire to retire,” and joked that he was fit, had a full head of hair and could run 100 meters in 18 seconds. The tour that followed was literally called “One Last Time.” Two years later, he is announcing another last time.
This one reads differently, and not only because of the heart procedure. The wording is firmer: “most definitely” is not a phrase he used in 2024. But the door is not fully closed either. The Guardian reports that he would not rule out one-off gigs in future, and US coverage has leaned into that, with Us Weekly’s headline stressing that he is “not retiring.” The fairest reading is that he is retiring from touring, not from singing. A Vegas night, a charity show or another album with Jools Holland (their 2024 record Swing Fever went to No. 1) all remain possible.
What seems settled is that the version of Rod Stewart who packs a bag and plays arena after arena across a continent is on his last lap. After more than 60 years, from the Jeff Beck Group and the Faces through “Maggie May,” “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” and the Great American Songbook, that is a genuine ending.
Whether he sticks to it is the argument fans will be having for the next ten months. His record says be careful betting against him. His health this year says he may mean it this time.
