Aerosmith has announced a 40-date farewell tour for this fall, saying in an announcement Monday morning that the band is calling it quits on road dates after a more than five-decade career.
Their “Peace Out” tour begins Sept. 2 in Philadelphia and is scheduled to wrap up Jan. 26, 2024 in Montreal. The hometown show for Boston on the tour is slated for New Year’s Eve.
The Black Crowes will open the Live Nation-produced trek. All dates go on sale this Friday at 10 a.m. local time.
There was little — actually, no — sentimentality in the group’s announcement. “It’s not goodbye, it’s peace out!” said a statement jointly attributed to the band members. “Get ready and walk this way, you’re going to get the best show of our lives.”
Founding drummer Joey Kramer, who sat out parts of the group’s recent Las Vegas residency, will not be part of this tour either, the announcement stated. The wording around his absence was similar to what was stated in explaining him being MIA during an early part of the Vegas residency in 2019-20.
“While Joey Kramer remains a beloved founding member of Aerosmith, he has regrettably made the decision to sit out the currently scheduled touring dates to focus his full attention on his family and health,” the statement said. “Joey’s unmistakable and legendary presence behind the drum kit will be sorely missed.”
In Los Angeles, the group’s apparent final gig will be Dec. 7 at the Kia Forum. In New York, following an earlier nearby stop in Newark, NJ on Dec. 28, they’ll be saying goodbye at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 19, the tour’s last currently scheduled night in the U.S. before two additional final gigs in Canada. (Scroll through for the full itinerary.)
Only single dates were announced for each city along the routing. Slight gaps in the schedule would seem to at least allow for the possibility of second nights to be added later, although there aren’t vast amounts of wiggle room in the itinerary, with most stops being scheduled three days apart.
Aerosmith’s “Deuces Are Wild” residency in Las Vegas, which began in April 2019, came to a close this past fall as the band canceled several final gigs at Dolby Live in Park MGM and refunded fans, attributing the cancellations to an illness affecting singer Steven Tyler.
Amid the Vegas shows, Aerosmith played a 50th anniversary show this past Sept. 8 at Boston’s Fenway Park, delayed from original plans to hold it in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Although the announcement only refers to a retirement from touring, the group has been inactive as a recording unit in recent years, not having released a new album in more than a decade, even though Joe Perry said in 2019 that the band had plans to go in the studio and record new material. The last Aerosmith studio album, “Music From Another Dimension!,” was released in 2012. Their most recent release, “1971: The Road Starts Here,” was a collection of the band’s very first demos. In 2021, the band signed a distribution deal for its catalog with Universal Music Group, covering five decades’ worth of albums that originally came out on Columbia and Geffen.
Kramer’s relationship with the other band members was strained at times in recent years. He sat out dates on the Las Vegas residency in 2019 after suffering what was described as a minor shoulder injury, then later complained he was not being allowed to rejoin the group, as it continued with substitute drummer John Douglas, his drum technician. He sued the group to reclaim his place as drummer for a MusiCares Person of the Year honor in January 2020, but the request for an injunction was denied by a judge. Kramer ultimately came to the ceremony and posed with the group, but did not perform. The following month, he slid back into the drummer’s seat for the Las Vegas residency after all, returning to the performing lineup on Feb. 10, 2020, only to get a mere three shows back under his belt before the engagement was put on hold due to COVID. The drummer was not with the group when they resumed doing shows two and a half years later.
In 2021, guitarist Brad Whitford had expressed doubts that the group would ever perform together again, due to health issues nearly all of the band members had recently faced, as well as pandemic issues that were forcing an international tour to be rescheduled. Appearing on Joe Bonamassa’s podcast, Whitford said at the time, “I mean, I have my doubts about Aerosmith ever really performing again at this stage, because age is becoming a real factor. And it is what it is.” (The band members are now ages 71-75.) Nonetheless, the band came back in 2022 to do further Vegas residency shows and the Fenway Park anniversary celebration.
Aerosmith’s last tour before the multi-year Las Vegas engagement was a 24-date international run in 2017-18 that included just three shows in the U.S. The last time Aerosmith toured more extensively through the U.S. was a two-month tour in 2015.
With the exception of the on-again, off-again Kramer, the band remains relatively and remarkably intact for a group founded 52 years ago, with Tyler and Whitford joined again in the lineup by Joe Perry and Tom Hamilton.
One interesting side notes for fans of intellectual property news: Aerosmith appears to have successfully filed for a trademark on the phrase “Peace Out,” as the familiar TM symbol appears after all references to the tour’s name in publicity materials.
The itinerary for Aerosmith’s farewell tour:
Sat Sep 02 – Philadelphia, PA – Wells Fargo Center
Wed Sep 06 – Pittsburgh, PA – PPG Paints Arena
Sat Sep 09 – Belmont Park, NY – UBS Arena
Tue Sep 12 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena
Fri Sep 15 – Chicago, IL – United Center
Mon Sep 18 – Detroit, MI – Little Caesars Arena
Thu Sep 21 – Cleveland, OH – Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse
Sun Sep 24 – Raleigh, NC – PNC Arena
Wed Sep 27 – Washington, DC – Capital One Arena
Wed Oct 11 – Tampa, FL – Amalie Arena
Sat Oct 14 – Atlanta, GA – State Farm Arena
Tue Oct 17 – Charlotte, NC – Spectrum Center
Fri Oct 20 – Sunrise, FL – FLA Live Arena
Mon Oct 23 – Austin, TX – Moody Center
Thu Oct 26 – St Louis, MO – Enterprise Center
Sun Oct 29 – Indianapolis, IN – Gainbridge Fieldhouse
Wed Nov 01 – San Antonio, TX – AT&T Arena
Sat Nov 04 – Tulsa, OK – BOK Center
Tue Nov 07 – Dallas, TX – American Airlines Center
Fri Nov 10 – Omaha, NE – CHI Health Center
Mon Nov 13 – St Paul, MN – Xcel Energy Center
Thu Nov 16 – Kansas City, MO – T-Mobile Center
Sun Nov 19 – Denver, CO – Ball Arena
Wed Nov 22 – Salt Lake City, UT – Vivint Arena
Sat Nov 25 – Portland, OR – Moda Center
Tue Nov 28 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena
Fri Dec 01 – San Francisco, CA – Chase Center
Mon Dec 04 – San Jose, CA – SAP Center
Thu Dec 07 – Los Angeles, CA – The Kia Forum
Sun Dec 10 – Phoenix, AZ – Footprint Center
Thu Dec 28 – Newark, NJ – Prudential Center
Sun Dec 31 – Boston, MA – TD Garden
Thu Jan 04 – Cincinnati, OH – Heritage Bank Arena
Sun Jan 07 – Louisville, KY – KFC Yum! Center
Wed Jan 10 – Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena
Sat Jan 13 – Knoxville, TN – Thompson-Boling Arena
Tue Jan 16 – Buffalo, NY – KeyBank Center
Fri Jan 19 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
Tue Jan 23 – Columbus, OH – Schottenstein Center
Fri Jan 26 – Montreal, QC – Bell Centre