Scorpions tour paves way to retirement with 'Sting and Blackout' dates

German rock crew Scorpions may have "reached the end of the road," as they recently announced. But that doesn't mean the band, which recently called it quits after four decades in the music industry, is done touring.

"We want to end the Scorpion’s extraordinary career on a high note. We are extremely grateful for the fact that we still have the same passion for music we’ve always had since the beginning," the band said in a statement on their Web site. "This is why, especially now, we agree we have reached the end of the road."

The rock quintet, which debuted in the mid-1960s, explained that their upcoming March album "Sting in the Tail" will be their last. But despite being at "the end of the road," fans won't have to say goodbye to Scorpions quite yet.

The heavy metal group will continue touring through the foreseeable future "with a tour that will start in our home country Germany and take us to five different continents over the next few years," according to a statement.

The Get Your Sting and Blackout World Tour will run through 2011/2012, though only a dozen concert dates have been announced so far. As it stands now, the Scorpions will be on the road from May 7 at Arena in Leipzig, GER, through June 12 at Stadtgarten am Festspielhaus in Recklinghausen, GER.

Scorpions have had an almost constant presence on the road in recent years. The group's Humanity World Tour ran from March 2007 through December 2009, and was preceded by almost yearly tours over the past decade.