Don McLean will play his final UK and Ireland concerts in 2027, it has been announced.
The American Pie singer, 80, will perform eight dates on The Farewell Tour, beginning in Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall on May 11 and ending at London’s Royal Albert Hall on May 22.
McLean will also perform in Belfast, Dublin, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester and Gateshead.
The tour will draw on the full span of McLean’s catalogue, from Castles In The Air and And I Love You So through to material from his 22nd studio album, American Boys, released in May 2024.
McLean, from New Rochelle, New York, has history with each city he will visit.
The tour opens in Glasgow because Scotland is where his name comes from.
McLean’s father and grandfather were called Donald McLean, and he first headlined Glasgow at The Apollo in 1973.
He went to Belfast during the Troubles, saying music could bring a divided city together, while Dublin holds the finest surviving film of his early years, RTÉ’s recording of his National Stadium concert in December 1975.
McLean’s first British television special was recorded at Pebble Mill in Birmingham, with Elkie Brooks and The Jordanaires.
Bristol Beacon, once Colston Hall, was among the venues tapped for his live album Solo in 1973.
Manchester gave him the Free Trade Hall in 1991, a night filmed, mislaid for twenty years and released at last as Live In Manchester.
Tyneside runs both ways: he had taken Geordie’s Lost His Penker into his set by 1971, and his support act on the 1980 British tour was Prelude, the Gateshead trio behind After The Goldrush.
It ends with his show at the Royal Albert Hall, exactly 55 years after he debuted on the same stage in 1972.
McLean said: “I love these audiences. They have kept me going for 55 years and given me a career I could not have had anywhere else.
“A troubadour has to make his farewells somewhere, and I would rather choose the place myself.
“The Albert Hall was the first room that ever felt like it belonged to me, and it seems right that it should be the last.”
Tickets for all non-London shows go on sale on September 18 at 10am and tickets for the Royal Albert Hall show go on sale on October 2 at 10am.
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