Pilgrimage: Little Feat's "The Last Farewell Tour '26"

Little Feat at City Auditorium, Eureka Springs, Arkansas, Tuesday, May 5, 2026.

Image courtesy of Chris M. Junior

Little Feat’s The Last Farewell Tour is a bit misleading. The tour’s name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to their 1975 album The Last Record Album (Warner Bros., 1975). While it signifies an end to heavy touring, co-founder Bill Payne has clarified in Rolling Stone Magazine that the band will continue to record and perform in more limited capacities, such as residencies, as long as they are able.

The three LF OGs Bill Payne, Sam Clayton, and Kenny Gradney are 77, 80, and 76 years old, respectively. Fred Tackett, who has been associated with the band since its inception, joining in 1988, is 80. Slowing down is not a bad idea, but retiring altogether, is.

The latest iteration of the band comprises, Bill Payne (Keyboards, vocals); Sam Clayton (percussion, vocals); Kenny Gradney (bass); Scott Sharard (guitars, vocals) and Tony Leone (drums, vocals). The band’s most recent history has been busy. Following Rooster Rag (2012), the band entered a decade of transition and loss. Keyboardist Bill Payne joined Leftover Salmon in 2014 before moving to the Doobie Brothers in 2015, a shift that limited his availability and reduced the band’s touring schedule. During this period, members often toured as the quartet “Funky Feat.”

Health struggles also sidelined guitarist Paul Barrere, who had battled hepatitis C since 1994 and was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2015. Despite a brief 50th-anniversary tour in 2018—augmented by the Midnight Ramble Horns—Barrere passed away on October 26, 2019.

The band’s modern era began with guitarist Scott Sharrard and drummer Tony Leone joining the lineup. This iteration released the blues album Sam’s Place (2024), featuring Sam Clayton on lead vocals. In May 2025, Little Feat released Strike Up the Band, their first collection of new original material in 13 years, spearheaded by the single “Too High to Cut My Hair.”

Playing to a capacity crowd (average age north of 60) at Eureka Springs’ City Auditorium, the band could have done little more than phone the show in had it chosen to. But the band, and especially Arkansan Fred Tackett (who owned a home in the city) have had a lengthy relationship with the “Paris of the Ozarks.” Mr. Tackett and the band came to play.

In what I expected to be a single 90-minute set, the band submitted a 26-song, 2 hour juggernaut, dramatically assembled with material from the band’s entire book, 1970 through 2026.

Setlist and Song Album Origins

Set One - Electric

• “Fat Man in the Bathtub,” Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros., 1973)

• “Oh, Atlanta,” Feats Don’t Fail Me Now (Warner Bros. 1975)

• “Two Trains,” Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros., 1973)

• “On Your Way Down,” Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros., 1973) - Allen Toussaint cover

• “Honest Man,” Lowell George: Thanks, I’ll Eat It Here (Warner Bros., 1979) - Composed by Fred Tackett and Lowell George.

• “Rad Gumbo,” Representing the Mambo (Warner Bros., 1990)

• “One Love Stand,” The Last Record Album (Warner Bros., 1975)

• “Too High to Cut My Hair,” Strike Up the Band (Hot Tomato. 2025)

• “Rocket in My Pocket,” Time Loves a Hero (Warner Bros., 1977)

• “Time Loves a Hero,” Time Loves a Hero (Warner Bros., 1977)

Set Two - Acoustic

• “Fool Yourself,” Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros., 1973)

• “Bluegrass Pines,” Strike Up the Band (Hot Tomato, 2025)

• “Church Falling Down,” Rooster Rag (Hot Tomato, 2012)

• “An Apolitical Blues / Long Distance Call,” Sailin’ Shoes (Warner Bros., 1972); Muddy Waters, “Long Distance Call,” Chess Records 1452, 1951/Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Long Distance Moan,” Paramount Records 12852, 1929.

• “Trouble,” Sailin’ Shoes (Warner Bros., 1972)

• “Willin’,” Little Feat (Warner Bros., 1971) and Sailin’ Shoes (Warner Bros., 1972)

• “Louisiana 1927,” (Randy Newman, Good Old Boys (Reprise, 1974); cover by Bill Payne

Set Three Electric: Coda

• “Lafayette Railroad,” Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros., 1973)

• Spanish Moon,” Feats Don’t Fail Me Now (Warner Bros. 1975)

• “That’s Her, She’s Mine,” Representing the Mambo (Warner Bros., 1990)

• “Cold, Cold, Cold,” Sailin’ Shoes (Warner Bros., 1972)

• “Dixie Chicken,” Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros., 1973)

• “Tripe Face Boogie,” Sailin’ Shoes (Warner Bros., 1972)

• “Teenage Nervous Breakdown,” Sailin’ Shoes (Warner Bros., 1972)

• “Let It Roll,” Let It Roll (Warner Bros., 1988)

Highlights included the refurbished “Fat Man in the Bathtub,” “Honest Man” which Tackett co-wrote with Lowell George, and the mashup of “Apolitical Blues” and Muddy Waters’ “Long Dstance Call,” the latter sung by percussionist and Little Feat OG, Sam Clayton. Keyboardist Bill Payne ended the acoustic segment of the show with a warmly performed cover of Randy Newman’s “Louisiana, 1927). “Lafayette Railroad,” an instrumental from Dixie Chicken, was presented dense and desert dry to open the final, electric portion of the show that also included “Teenage Nervous Breakdown” and “Let It Roll,” closing the show.

The crowd was respectful and as boisterous as a group of Baby Boomers can be, and the venue, with its modest capacity, was perfect for the band to show off. Which is exactly what they did.