The Go-Go’s announced recently that they will be embarking on their farewell tour this year, playing their last show sometime in July. The schedule hasn’t been unveiled yet, but I decided this evening I would make it to at least one of their shows (hopefully that’ll include somewhere in Seattle).

“We Got the Beat” was the band’s biggest hit, getting to number two on the Hot 100 (and staying there for several weeks, but unable to get past Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll”). It was written by guitarist Charlotte Caffey and was the second single from their amazing debut album, Beauty and the Beat (the first single was “Our Lips are Sealed”, which was co-written by the other Go-Go’s guitarist, Jane Wiedlin and Fun Boy Three’s Terry Hall - both bands recorded versions of the song and were both top 10 hits). “We Got the Beat”, though, was the single that took Beauty and the Beat to number one on the Top 200 albums charts.

Wikipedia’s note that The Go-Go’s were “made rock history as the first all-woman band that both wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to top the Billboard album charts” seems more than a little patronizing, but that’s hardly insignificant.

I selfishly want all of the bands I love to stay together while the Nickelbacks of the world can go to hell and stay there for all I care, I’m kind of glad this is how The Go-Go’s will bow out because at least I’ll make it a priority to see one of my favorite bands for both the first and last time.