Little Feat Brings Last Farewell Tour to Beaver Creek Vilar Center

Aspen —Little Feat is winding down its touring engine, trading the exhaustion of the road for the comfort of home, and that decision lands squarely in Beaver Creek this August. The band’s “Last Farewell Tour” is not a sudden exit, but a deliberate slowing of the wheels, a process the group says began last April and will take years to fully complete.

The show at the Vilar Center on Aug. 19 is sold out, but if you’re willing to wait for a miracle, you can sign up for a ticket alert in case more seats open up. This isn’t one of those farewell tours where the band promises never to play again, only to reunite five years later for a lucrative stadium run. According to the band, this is a genuine retirement from full-time touring, driven by the physical toll that constant travel takes on musicians who are aging into their eighties.

Fred Tackett, the songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who turns 81 on Aug. 30, explained the logic behind the shift. The goal is to “lose our bus,” the large vehicle that carries the band and crew across the country. Without it, the band must adapt to a more manageable rhythm. Instead of flying or driving long distances, they drive for six or seven hours overnight to the next town, check into a hotel by 6 or 7 in the morning, sleep for a few hours, and then play the gig. It’s a cycle of exhaustion they are eager to leave behind.

“We do not do one every night, driving all night and playing a gig in different places,” Tackett said. He noted that if they play in Omaha, it will likely be the last time they perform there for a while. The band figures it will take at least two years to fully “lose” the bus, as they make their way through a curated list of cities to say goodbye properly.

The itinerary leading up to the Vilar show highlights this careful, radiating approach. After a show in Gunnison on Aug. 16, the band travels to Steamboat Springs on Tuesday, then to the Vilar Center in Beaver Creek on Wednesday. From there, they move to Colorado Springs on Friday and Denver on Saturday before heading south, though not until Sept. 10. They plan to continue performing on special cruise events and at festivals, but the relentless pace of the open road is ending.

The lineup anchoring this farewell is steeped in the band’s history. Little Feat was founded in 1969, and while keyboardist Bill Payne remains the only original member, the current roster includes bassist Kenny Gradney and percussionist Sam Clayton, both of whom joined in 1972. Tackett became a staple after the 1987 ad-hoc reunion, which took place at Alley Studios, a hideaway for elite musicians in North Hollywood, California.

The band just released its most recent album, “Strike Up the Band,” last year, adding one more layer to a career that has spanned decades. For the locals in Beaver Creek, the Vilar Center show represents a rare chance to see a band that has been a constant presence in American rock for over fifty years, even as they prepare to step off the stage for good.

The smell of old wood and the hum of the crowd at the Vilar Center will be different this year, charged with the knowledge that these musicians are slowly, surely walking away from the life they’ve known for generations.