There are a lot of legends' tours coming to town which might be their last concerts in Milwaukee. We're giving our predictions on these "farewell" tours and if they'll be worth it, because as those quotation marks imply, artists have been known to go on farewell tours more than once.
Each Thursday morning on Radio Milwaukee, the Journal Sentinel’s Piet Levy and 88Nine’s Jordan Lee talk about the music coming into Milwaukee and the music coming out of Milwaukee on Tap’d In.
Read more and listen to the podcast episode below to hear about the good, the bad and the ugly of farewell tours.
Farewell tours in Milwaukee: The good, the bad and the ugly
Bob Seger's Travelin' Man Farewell Tour is at the Fiserv Forum tonight. Elton John will be there for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour on February 19. On March 1, KISS is stopping there for the End of the Road tour. Cher will be at the Forum on May 12 for her Here We Go Again tour. Then on July 4, Ozzy Osbourne's No More Tours 2 show is coming to Summerfest (and yes, they already did a first No More Tours tour).
The good
One pro is that you get to see a legend one more time in concert. Maybe you didn't have the time or money to see them when you were younger, or maybe you weren't even alive last time they toured. This gives younger and older generations the opportunity to come together to see some classics. Plus, two words: production. quality. Artists who have legend status have bigger budgets and their concerts go all out on a much larger scale than they could afford in their prime. Thanks to the technology of the Fiserv Forum and the year 2019, the production of these concerts will probably blow your mind.
And sure, maybe these shows won't actually turn out to be your very last opportunity to see the artist, but you never know.
The bad
These concerts can get downright cheesy. Especially if this is the second or even third "farewell tour" an artists has done. And especially if an artist who is 76 is trying to act like they're 26. They'll never be able to recreate the past, so they shouldn't try. When they do, that's when these shows can get very stale.
The ugly
Fake endings are ugly. We get that sometimes artists might really think they're calling it quits, but then be drawn back to touring by fans, fame, fortune, etc. People are allowed to change their minds. But it's not cool to play with fans, saying it's your last goodbye when you don't mean it. Die-hard fans will always go to great (often financial) lengths to see shows like this, so artists shouldn't take advantage of that. We see it as a breach of trust and money-grabbing. And that's ugly.
Best case scenario is that Bob Seger, Elton John, Kiss, Ozzy Osbourne and Cher all treat these like their last shows in Milwaukee, giving it their all. We think these artists are in it for their legacies and are trying to go out with a bang, so tickets will probably be worth it.
