Aerosmith calls it quits after 50 years of live music with final farewell tour

Aerosmith has announced it will hit the road no more – following one last 40-venue concert run.

“After 50 years, 10 world tours and playing for over 100 million fans, it’s time for one last go,” a release said Monday (1 May).

“It’s not goodbye it’s PEACE OUT!” bandmates Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton and Brad Whitford added in a joint statement. “Get ready and walk this way, you’re going to get the best show of our lives.”

Meanwhile, drummer Joey Kramer will sit out the farewell tour to “focus his attention on his family and health” since the band’s Las Vegas residency last year.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band also announced the dates for the tour, named “Peace Out” starting 2 September in Philadelphia. The 40-date run of shows, which includes a stop in the band’s hometown of Boston on New Year’s Eve, will end on 26 January in Montreal.

“I think it’s about time,” guitarist Joe Perry said.

Perry said the group, with frontman Tyler, bassist Hamilton, drummer Kramer and guitarist Whitford, learned from the staging and production of their recent Vegas residency.

Perry believes the time to say goodbye is now, especially with every founding band member over the age of 70. Tyler, 75, is the oldest in the group.

“It’s kind of a chance to celebrate the 50 years we’ve been out here,” Perry said. “You never know how much longer everybody’s going to be healthy to do this. … It’s been a while since we’ve actually done a real tour. We did that run in Vegas, which was great. It was fun, but (we're) kind of anxious to get back on the road.“

Tyler and Perry said the band is looking forward to digging into their lengthy catalogue of the group’s rock classics including “Crazy,” “Janie’s Got a Gun” and “Livin’ on the Edge.”

Over the years, Aerosmith, which formed in 1970, has collected four Grammys. The band broke boundaries intersecting rock and hip-hop with their epic collaboration with Run-DMC for “Walk This Way.”

Aerosmith performed the Super Bowl halftime show in 2001 and even had their own theme park attraction in 1999 at Disney World in Florida and later in Paris with the launch of the “Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith" ride.

“We’re opening up Pandora’s Box one last time to present our fans with the Peace Out tour,” Tyler said in a statement to The Associated Press. His “Pandora's Box” reference calls out Aerosmith's 1991 three-disc compilation album that covered the band's output from the 1970s to the early 1980s.

“Be there or beware as we bring all the toys out of the attic. Get ready,” Tyler added.

On Kramer’s absence, the band added that his “legendary presence behind the drum kit will be sorely missed.”

Before the 40-date tour wraps, Perry said other cities domestically and internationally could be added.

“It’s the final farewell tour, but I have a feeling it will go on for a while,” he said. “But I don’t know how many times we’ll be coming back to the same cities. It could very possibly be the last time.”

Additional reporting from AP