What are your thoughts on MK & his band touring in the future ? (is it the end)

[Jules]

I think he will tour again, but it will be a Gilmour-esque tour which is absolutely fine by me. 15 shows around Europe and 15 more in the US/Canada. Can't see him doing a 80+ shows tour again in his 70's.

He could, but not at the pace he's done it at previously. With more rest in between shows, like on the Dylan tour, it could work, but of course this drives up the costs. Plus it would make it a very long tour. Not sure he or the band are too keen on that.

Not necesariliy, between May and June 2006 MK played 23 concerts in Europe and North America, in the following cities:

Brussels
Copenhagen
Hamburg
Stockholm
Oslo
Zurich 
Verona
Rotterdam
Frankfurt
London
Manchester
Dublin
Paris
Barcelona

Toronto
Washington
New York
Boston USA
Chicago
Minneapolis
Los Angeles
Santa Barbara
Berkeley

It was just two months and they played almost every European country he used to tour, but in less cities. Nowadays some of those cities have larger venues (in 2006 they played Wembley in London, which has 12.500 people capacity, and nowadays he can play the O2 which has 20.000 people capacity, for example.), so they can play for big audience, selling lots of tickets in little time.

Setting up a small tour playing the biggest venues it's a way of spend less time being out, and at the same time covering costs, and also making money.

[Klaus74]

Or he plays some bigger venues twice, like Lanxess-Arena, Cologne, or some other bigger concert-halls in EU or the US, with a capacity of 8000 Seats PLUS. So he can left much smaller venues out.

[Jules]

If people like Gilmour or Clapton can do that kind of smaller scale concerts.... MK could do it as well.

[ds1984]

If he can fill venues while selling tickets 30% to 50% more expensive than he used to sell.

The last tours have shown no good sign but none of us knows how well or bad his physical state really is.

[peterromer]

I don't foresee a tour like the last ones in the future... Maybe something like the Emmylou Harris one, with selected dates in Europe and North America, something smaller.

At the end of the last tour he said that he would keep doing that until he fells, but after the pandemic, maybe he changed his mind, but he also wants to keep playing and knows that there are a lot of people working around his tours and musicians are very aware of that, and those people had suffered the most for the pandemic. Doing small scale tours would work for him to play his songs again without too much travel and also would work to keep all the crew works going on.

Could definately be very interesting if he chose to tour with someone else. What a lucky person ;-)

So many good thoughts here and ideas. I like the streaming idea. That could prevent him from the hard touring work.

But I dont think the last tour was bad. Yes he has a bigger crew to cover him but thats just fair. He played for example Once Upon A Time.... which I had never seen live before myself. There were highlights for all of us I guess.

[Stanko]

You all are almost correct in a way.
Given it post pandemic world to come, I believe he will be touring in a scale he feels like in the future.
Until then buses and the trucks.

[Pottel]

I am astonished that people still expect him to tour. I think that is totally unrealistic. It's two, probably three years since the last one, it will not get better but worse with his condition. It would be wise to realize that at some point, it is over. He is too old, period. It might sound harsh to say so but it's reality. These guys are all the same. They just cannot stop it.

One or two last good (!) albums would be more than to dream of and a total bonus for every fan. Not that I really would expect any surprises. From my point of view, it will be going on with recycling his own stuff and lack of inspiration, disguised with many guest musicians and a variety of "new" styles like on that last Whatever album and Guy getting more and more responsibility in producing a good sounding, but thin echoe of what once was great and original. For me, Tracker is his legacy with 2 minutes Heart of Oak being so much better and superior over those 80 minutes of that what followed.
An album with songs like that, River of Grog and maybe Pale Imitation would be all that I would think of being appropriate. Less is more sometimes.

So in a nutshell about the topic: is it the end? Yes, it is and already since a while back.

LE

why not? look at Bob, Eric, Stones, Van Morisson, all still delivering great performances at older ages than Mark. and there are far more examples.

[quizzaciously]

why not? look at Bob, Eric, Stones, Van Morisson, all still delivering great performances at older ages than Mark. and there are far more examples.

I think that's extremely hard to compare artists... People age so differently, somebody dies at the age of 27, somebody still rocks at 100, and everything in between. Personally, I think it's unnecessary to play big stadiums and tour with a plane when you're 70+, looks ridiculous, and often sounds like it.

I think like in life, you start small and slow, end up old, small and slow, in music it's the same way. If you decided to go on, I think the best option it smaller venues, smaller tours. Honestly, if MK goes onto yet another big tour, I'm not going.

[MagicElliott]

It’s a strange one this. Mark is in a bit of an odd position I think. He is NOT Elvis, Freddie Mercury or Paul McCartney. He is to us but the reality is he isn’t to most people.

And yet he would hardly downsize the venues he plays.
Has anyone ever heard of The Stables? It’s a 600ish seater venue in the Milton Keynes area which is not too far from me at all. It seems to be a very popular place for “ageing” rockers. To name a few who’ve Played there fairly recently: John Ilsley, Joe Brown, Steve Harley, Albert Lee, Ralph McTell and Ginger Baker.
A quick look at their website would reveal more names. Clearly those names would have pulled in big crowds once upon a time but now that isn’t happening and this sort of size is comfortable for them.
I wonder if Mark will ever get to that position. I’d love to him to in a way but I can’t see it happening. I think he’s an “all or none” man. I reckon that when he stops doing shows, he stops doing shows.
To put it another way, I can’t see him doing shows when he has a range of guitars along the back in front of the drums and picks them up himself. His type of show is where the guitar is tuned and handed to him.

[qjamesfloyd]

It’s a strange one this. Mark is in a bit of an odd position I think. He is NOT Elvis, Freddie Mercury or Paul McCartney. He is to us but the reality is he isn’t to most people.

And yet he would hardly downsize the venues he plays.
Has anyone ever heard of The Stables? It’s a 600ish seater venue in the Milton Keynes area which is not too far from me at all. It seems to be a very popular place for “ageing” rockers. To name a few who’ve Played there fairly recently: John Ilsley, Joe Brown, Steve Harley, Albert Lee, Ralph McTell and Ginger Baker.
A quick look at their website would reveal more names. Clearly those names would have pulled in big crowds once upon a time but now that isn’t happening and this sort of size is comfortable for them.
I wonder if Mark will ever get to that position. I’d love to him to in a way but I can’t see it happening. I think he’s an “all or none” man. I reckon that when he stops doing shows, he stops doing shows.
To put it another way, I can’t see him doing shows when he has a range of guitars along the back in front of the drums and picks them up himself. His type of show is where the guitar is tuned and handed to him.

Mike Oldfield does that, he has 4 or 5 guitars around him in a semi-circle, and he picks them up as needed.

[dustyvalentino]

He did downsize, in the mid to late 90s, with the 96 tour and then NHB dates. 2002 too.

It was an amazing time to follow him.

[Klaus74]

I think it also depends on the ideas of his Management, the tour-promoters, organisators and on Mark. Surely, he also can play a "smaller-location-tour" with smaller venues around 1000 seats plus or minus, than he can fullfill the ticket-demands for smaller locations, if he plays some venues twice. I´m not thinking of bigger locations with 10.000 plus seats or something like that, but the possibility of a tour in EU and USA with carefully chosen smaller locations. It´s an idea. Maybe it can be realistic in case of his health-shape, the effort in case of planning  such a tour and, of course, the demand of us fans, the ticket-purchasers.
It also depends on Marks decisions, how his worldtours look like in the future.
I hope, that he will be in very good shape in the future and that he can realize tours in the future and it doesn´t matter how such a tour looks like in the future, with smaller or bigger venues.

[ds1984]

Health condition

Motivation

Financial consideration

Plus post covid venue availablility.

[hunter]

He did downsize, in the mid to late 90s, with the 96 tour and then NHB dates. 2002 too.

It was an amazing time to follow him.

Never got to see any of those shows in person, but those were his golden solo years. There were many stellar moments from 2005 onwards, but the show format and setlist got a less interesting from then on.

[Love Expresso]

Things got worse when the "seated era" started around 2001. 1996 was such a great tour! So much energy and powerful guitar playing. When he came up with the shortened Sultans in 2001 it was the first time he really disappointed me. Many more followed over the years..

LE