Whitesnake have announced the first two dates on what will be their upcoming farewell tour.

The band, which was formed in 1978 by singer David Coverdale after the dissolution of Deep Purple, are set to perform at two festivals in 2022 — Hellfest in Clisson, France on June 23 and Rock Imperium Festival in Cartagena, Spain on June 24 through 25.

This final run should not come as a surprise to Whitesnake fans who have kept tabs on Coverdale over the last year, as he floated the idea of a farewell tour multiple times in the recent past. A 2020 trek was canceled to afford the singer time to undergo hernia surgery and he later suggested that one last Whitesnake tour would take place in 2022, presuming the dust had settled on the pandemic and live shows were a go once more.

The idea had clearly been rattling around in his head for quite some time, however. In the fall Coverdale, who had just celebrated his 69th birthday two months earlier, joked on the Rhino Podcast, "What could be a better age for the lead singer of Whitesnake [to retire] than 69? I'd even designed really terrible T-shirts to go with it."

He explained that he had loose intentions on bringing things to a conclusion at some point this year, but obviously things got pushed further out. "So the plan was to do literally an appreciation and gratitude [tour] for such an extraordinary support for five decades, and then maybe go into 2021," added Coverdale.

If this truly is the end of Whitesnake and the band elects not to record another record, the legendary catalog will stand at 13 studio albums, one of them being The Purple Album, a reimagining of songs from Coverdale's time spent in Deep Purple. Their last album, Flesh & Blood, was released in 2019.

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