Cheap Trick, Night Ranger, Winger Announce ‘Farewell Japan’ Tours

Cheap Trick, Night Ranger and Winger are all planning to say goodbye to Japan in 2025.

All three bands have announced farewell tours for the Far East island country, which has played an important role in each of their careers.

Winger are nearly done with their last Japanese dates. They will perform at Tokyo’s Ex Theater Roppongi Monday March 31 and Tuesday April 1 before departing the country for good. Frontman Kip Winger says the group are winding down their touring career to allow him to focus on songwriting.

“I’m ending my touring days,” he told the Rockpit in March 2025. “I say this often to many people, interruption is the death of creativity. When you spend six months a year in an airport getting nothing done…. if you’ve got 40 gigs, you’ve [also] got 80 travel days. I’m just so replete with musical ideas.. I want to spend those days composing.”

Winger released the home video Live in Tokyo in 1991.

Night Ranger’s farewell to Japan doesn’t appear to be part of any overall retirement plans, as none of the promotion for their upcoming North American tour dates has included any mention of it being fans’ last chance to see the group. But the band has shared social media posts from Japanese promoter Udo Artists announcing “The Goodbye Tour,” which will find Night Ranger performing Oct. 14 at Osaka’s Grand Cube and Oct. 16 at Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan.

In 2019 guitarist Brad Gillis described Japan as “a beautiful country with excellent people, food culture and landscape.” The following year he explained the band’s long history with the country in an interview with Roppongiocks.com: “The fans have embraced us and all shows have been sold out. We’ve noticed the fans still love classic rock. We’ve played over 50 shows in Japan and can’t wait to head back over soon.”

To date Night Ranger has released five live albums and home videos recorded at concerts in Japan, including 1983’s Night Ranger: Japan Tour, 1988’s Japan in Motion, 1990’s Live in Japan, 1997’s Rock in Japan 1997 and 2007’s Rockin’ Shibuya.

The dates have not been revealed for Cheap Trick’s Japanese farewell tour, only a post and fliers from Udo Artists announcing it to be arriving this year. The country played a massive role in helping the band break through to a world wide audience after Japanese journalists praised their appearance as Queen‘s opening act on a 1977 tour.

After releasing three albums without breaking through in the United States, it was the 1978 live album Cheap Trick at Budokan – originally intended only for the Japanese market – that made the Rockford, Illinois-born group stars in their home country. They released a sequel, Budokan II, in 1994.

“[T]hey kind of like that quirky cartoon character thing [we had] going on, which Queen has or Kiss certainly has,” Robin Zander told Dan Rather’s The Big Interview of the band’s Japanese popularity in 2019. “We were like cartoon characters…[O]ur record company in the States and stuff, they thought, ‘Boy, this is too weird.’ But the Japanese, they got a kick out of it.”