5 Bands Who Cried Wolf About Calling It Quits Before Touring Again

Sir Elton John is doing a two-night stand at American Airlines Center this week, and while the singer-songwriter extraordinaire has normally been confined to single nights at the same venue in times past, this time is different. This time, he’s saying goodbye, and he’s doing it in one long exit tour named “Farewell Yellow Brick Road.”

There’s no apparent reason to believe that John is being insincere in his declaration that he’s throwing in the towel after a career spanning 60 years, but some artists have a history of doing that.

To that end, we have good reason to raise an eyebrow the next time these five artists say they’re saying goodbye for good.

KISS
KISS’s 2000 tour was dubbed “The Farewell Tour” for what should have been obvious reasons, but they would tour again in 2003 and more than a dozen times after that.

In 2018, KISS announced once again that — for real this time, guys — they were going to call it quits for good and enjoy a low-key life of managing Hard Rock Café rip-offs. The alleged farewell tour made its way through Dallas in 2019, with many faithful (and arguably gullible) fans thinking that was going to be the last time KISS played, but nope! Because we’re so lucky, they announced a show at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth a few months later.

We know that some diehard KISS fans would say, “That Fort Worth show was part of the same tour! It’s called ‘The End of the Road World Tour,’ and it’s still happening.”

Y’know, just like how Bob Dylan’s “Never Ending Tour” has been going on since 1988. You don’t see him telling everyone that’s his last tour despite that possibly being true on a technicality, do you?

Guided by Voices
The first time Guided by Voices broke up was whenever. For a band that released more than 50 albums and EPs since 1986, a hiatus period of 2004-2010 is quite a loss for indie music at a time when it thrived.

But you can’t convince us that Guided by Voices calling it quits in 2014 only to come back for a second reunion in 2016 wasn’t crying wolf. They actually released Cool Planet in 2014 and Please Be Honest in 2016. If any other band released two albums in the span of two years despite being broken up for both of those years, people would be rapidly drawing the KISS comparisons.

Slayer
Listen, we know Slayer eventually made good on their threats to break up, but that time in 2018 when they said the tour that went through Bomb Factory was going to be their last run only to announce a later one in Irving — that was some Gene Simmons-esque shit.

And yeah, two farewell shows is better than one, but don’t play with our emotions like that.

Death Grips
Death Grips breaking up was actually quite an alpha move, if you think about it.

Right at the height of their online hype in 2014, the industrial hip-hop trio was tapped as an opener for a co-headline tour package with Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden. Right before the moment of truth came, the band dropped this message on their Facebook page: “We are now at our best and so Death Grips is over. We have officially stopped. All currently scheduled live dates are canceled.”

After this happened, Trent Reznor expressed his (let’s be honest, justified) frustration in tweeting, “Why would I have ever thought those dudes could keep it together?”

Anyway, despite going out in such a fashion, they reunited seven months later to drop more music, then in 2017 toured with Ministry, NIN’s more pioneering but less commercially successful industrial music counterpart.

Eagles
Don Henley said in 2016 that the Eagles would stop playing, but the band would embark on another tour the following year.

In fairness, Glenn Frey’s death probably had a lot to do with that, so in the interest of human decency, we’ll keep the list of jokes at the Eagles’ expense in the draft folder this time around.

But just know we’re leaving a lot on the cutting room floor in doing that, and none of the jokes have anything to do with The Big Lebowski.