The long goodbye: Cher's farewell tour ends

Belly dancers, a dancing elephant, and a video montage of her lengthy career marked the end of Cher's three-year farewell tour. Cher, 58, played to a sold-out crowd Saturday at the Hollywood Bowl and insisted that this final concert on her 325-stop tour really was the end. "I'm approaching 80," she joked to the crowd, "and if I did that thing everyone does, come back in five years, I'd be driving around in one of those carts, you know, the ones with the joysticks you see in Costco. There are two reasons people come back. Because, like the Stones, they're broke. Again. Or they're old divas who can't wait to be out among their adoring fans. But this, this truly is it." Video clips broadcast on four giant screens showed the Sonny Bono years in the 1970s, shots from her solo career, and clips of Cher with Carol Burnett, Ray Charles, Elton John, David Bowie, and the Muppets. Her final show was vintage Cher, who made her entrance from above decked out in a silver coat and hood. She kicked off the show with her standard opening song, a cover of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," and ditched the coat as she hit the stage to reveal a skimpy G-string outfit. The show, which included about a dozen costume changes, ended with fireworks that spelled out her tour's expletive-laden tagline, "Follow this, you bitches!" (AP)