Rod Stewart Sets 2027 UK and European Dates as Final Tour
In Utah he nearly fainted on stage. Rod Stewart paused the gig, took oxygen from a tank, and asked the crowd if he could sit down. “Would you mind if I sat down for this one?” he said.
That stop sat inside a longer run of 2026 interruptions. Earlier dates had already been postponed after a sinus infection and a respiratory infection that brought laryngitis. In August a coronary stent procedure cut short the remaining nights of the One Last Time tour across North America and Mexico. The Las Vegas residency went with them. The cancelled leg had been scheduled to stretch into September. Doctors ordered those remaining dates cancelled just for precaution. The decision left him devastated.
His wife, Lady Penny Lancaster, told the Press Association what those nights still required of him. He did not sit on a stool or stay behind a piano. He ran for nearly two hours with four costume changes, sweating through everything, straight in at full pace like a boxer leaving the dressing room for the ring or a horse coming out of the blocks. She said he was already back at full speed in ordinary life and felt he had a new lease of life.
Each break had left the same open question of how much of the road was still left to him, and on what terms. He answered it on Monday, September 29, 2026. The Instagram video from the 81-year-old gave the coming shows their name: The Final Encore.
“Well, here we go... one last time!” he said. “Come and see me on my The Final Encore Tour for one more round of rock 'n' roll. I'm really looking forward to it.”
“After much deliberation and sadness, I have to announce next year will be my last tour forever, ever.” He drew the line without closing the work itself. “I’m not retiring,” he said. “But this will be the last rock 'n' roll tour, so I want to thank you for everything you've given me and, hopefully, I've given you something in return.”
“My dear friends, the time has come to say farewell to life on the road.” And again: “After more than six decades, The Final Encore will most definitely be my last.”
Touring would end. The work would not. The six decades that made the choice hard still sat behind it, from the first nights on the street to the doctors’ orders that had already pulled him off the previous leg.
As a young man he set out across Europe with a harmonica, busking beside the folk singer Wizz Jones. Spain deported him for vagrancy. That was the start. He had been singing the music he loved since he was nineteen years old. The decades that followed took the same songs around the world and gave him a life beyond anything he could have imagined.
“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.”
On ITV’s Lorraine, Lorraine Kelly and Dr Amir Khan discussed the announcement live. Kelly said he was a trooper who loved what he did, so ending the tours after heart surgery would have been a really hard decision. Khan noted the coronary stent from earlier in the year and that Stewart’s wife had described his stage energy as a boxer’s, which left the choice a hard one.
The Final Encore was twenty-one dates. It opened April 23, 2027, at Dublin’s 3Arena, then hit Belfast’s SSE Arena on April 27, Glasgow’s OVO Hydro on April 29, Birmingham’s Utilita Arena on May 4, Manchester’s Co-op Live on May 6, and London’s The O2 on May 11. Howard Jones supported the UK and Ireland shows.
The European leg ran from late May through July 24, 2027, and finished in Hannover. The cities included Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Rättvik, Trondheim, Bergen, Budapest, Munich, Pula, Prague and Kraków.
Fanclub tickets for The Final Encore went on sale on September 29, 2026. Local presales followed in the markets that held the dates. General sale opened on October 2, 2026.
Stewart closed the statement that fixed the tour as the last with the same plain thanks he had used for the life it ended. “So, may I take this opportunity to thank you for making this extraordinary life possible. I hope you'll join me so I can thank you the best way I know how, with the music and one hell of a show. See you there.”
The final night is July 24, 2027, at ZAG Arena in Hannover.