Runrig's Final Concert Set For August 2018
Thursday, October 19, 2017
A little over a year ago (has it really been over a year since I got my copy of The Story, Runrig's last studio album?) I wrote about how hearing that they had made their last studio album made me sad, because it reminded me that the day would come sooner rather than later that they would retire.
Looks like 45 years is the end for Runrig. About three weeks ago they announced that in 2018 they would have their Last Mile tour wrapping up with a massive farewell concert in Scotland on August 18.
From the official Runrig website:
After 45 wonderful years in the music business, we have finally taken the very difficult and heart wrenching decision to pull the curtain down on our long career, in 2018. We are now simply at that point in time where longevity and circumstance have to be balanced against what is right for the art and the muse. We feel that the time for this decision is now upon us, and we embrace it with a sense of positivity, but tinged with understandable sadness and reflection.
It was always inevitable that this day had to arrive, but it’s arrival does not make our situation any easier.
Taking the decision in 2015 to record the final studio album, The Story was a positive decision for us all. It was musically cathartic, creatively exciting, and it brought our recording career to a completed circle. It was very much a closing statement. We want to do the same for the live side of the band. To leave it unresolved would be a negative: to complete the circle with a series of farewell shows and celebrate our story together is the positive, meaningful, Runrig thing to do.
Will Runrig ever perform in some way again? – no one can say, but a door can be left open for any possible future, creative ventures. It would not be possible for us, as musicians, to stop writing, to stop recording and to stop the joy of live performance, but Runrig in its present form, as we’ve known it for 45 years, will come to an end.
Runrig the brand will of course continue and there are various exciting legacy projects in the pipeline and in the planning. We will leave information about all of that for another day, but for now, we are in a position to announce our series of farewell concerts for 2018. Entitled The Final Mile, the tour will take in shows in Germany, Denmark and England throughout the early summer, culminating in August with The Last Dance, the big final farewell concert in the heart of Scotland. The venue, City Park, Stirling, below the castle ramparts, is one that has newly been created for live performance events.
Needless to say, as soon as I found out about this I went online to check on tickets. Ann has been talking about going to Ireland, and going to Runrig's final concert is a darn good reason to go to the UK next summer.
What I discovered is that the 25000 tickets for the concert sold out the morning they went on sale.
But then a week later the band announced that they would do a 2nd concert the night before, presumably with another 25000 tickets. Hope!
But no, all of those tickets have sold out too. And I am bummed.
(There is some slight hope... while the venue apparently can't handle any more people, the organizers are looking for a way to allow more people to the concert despite that.)
It would be incredibly ironic if I did get to one of their final concerts, since I heard Silly Wizard do a live concert in CT way back in 1988 and it turned out to be their final tour. And we may still go to the UK next summer. Part of me very much hopes that somehow we can go to one of the concerts - and part of me almost wishes it doesn't work out, both because I really dislike huge crowds (and 25000+ people at a concert is a damn huge crowd) and partly because it will be a very bittersweet experience.
JMH
