Brooks & Dunn

Farewell tours often end up being an ongoing tease, giving fans a "we gotta see them now because we'll never ever get to see them ever, ever, again" sense of panic and finality, only to have the "extended" farewell tour roll through town again a year later. Kiss has been saying goodbye since 2000. Cher's farewell tour lasted three years and came through Phoenix three times. Given that, it remains to be seen whether superstar country duo Brooks & Dunn's farewell tour stop in Phoenix is the last time they'll ever play here, but fans of Kix and Ronnie won't want to take the chance. Before country pop confection Sugarland parted ways with the, ahem, non-photogenic member of their group and became a duo, Brooks & Dunn dominated the ACM and CMA "Top Vocal Duo" categories for nearly two decades. But with their blend of traditional country and Stones-y rock taking a backseat to the clean teen sheen of the Taylor Swift era of country music, B&D's chart positions have suffered in recent years and the duo decided to pull the plug on one of the most successful pairings in country music history. In a genre dominated by solo stars, Brooks and Dunn' chemistry was always an anomaly, with Ronnie Dunn, possessed of one of country's greatest voices, doing the singing and Kix Brooks playing the gee-tar, whipping up the crowd live and sporting the coolest 'stache in country, the two failed '80s solo singers became boot-scootin' superstars together. As Kiss and Cher (who is reportedly thinking of touring again) have discovered, riding off into the sunset is a hard row to hoe, but if this finale sticks, the closest you'll get to seeing Brooks and Dunn again is catching the B&D tribute act at Casino Arizona.
Fri., May 21, 7:30 p.m., 2010