I once saw country singer Hoyt Axton playing at a state fair.
After an hour or so, he said: “folks, that last song was the end of the show. So now this next song is the encore”.
He played one more song, and left the stage.
There was applause, but he didn’t return.
I’ve never seen him live, but isn’t that part of Van Morrison’s shtick, that he plays X amount of time, and that’s it, no encores? I’d heard that about him, anyway.
Saw Morrissey when he came to Houston a few years ago and played Jones Hall, where the Houston Symphony normally does their thing. No moat or other large barrier between the Moz and the audience. This was a mistake, as about 2/3 of the way through a typical set, some large fan decided to bum rush the stage and show him that he really needed a series of hugs. Security eventually pulled her off him, he finished the song, and that was it. No encore.
I’ve seen several that didn’t play encores. I could make a guess at their names but one I’m certain about is Peter Hammill, who has said at a couple of gigs I’ve been at that he’s going to play the set and that’s it. Both times he’s had a specific reason like an early curfew on the hall so he doesn’t want to waste time going off and hanging about in the wings for a couple of minutes…
On a Mutton Birds live cd it’s too awkward for the group to leave the stage (the hall is packed and they’d have to leave and return through the crowd) so there’s a humorous interlude while the lead singer asks the crowd to pretend they’ve left the stage and then come back on, which the crowd play along with 
Pere Ubu did a similar thing at a gig I was at, although David Thomas was a bit grumpier about it!
I’ve been to several recently where there’s been no encore, largely it’s been down to the venue setting a curfew by which time the band has to be off stage. The thinking from the bands is that they know how long they have to play, they’ll fill that time with songs and not bother wasting the time off-stage waiting for the encore moment when they could still be up there doing what they do best.
We went to see Steve Miller two years ago doing the 40th anniversary tour of The Joker, and he didn’t do an encore, much to the consternation of the fans.
I’ve wondered about this before. A band walking off stage for their encore and then walking back on a minute later is playing their part of the game, but I had wondered what would happen if the crowd didn’t play along. If the band walked off and everyone cheered for a second then started chatting with each other or playing with their phones if the band would come back. But most shows I’ve gone to the crowd is enthusiastic and sincerely cheering until the band comes back on stage. And I know it’s part of the plan, but often the band does seem glad to have the enthusiastic reaction and happy to come back and play a few more songs.
But also I would assume that there’s going to be an encore if the lights stay down. The venue always wants people out of there as soon as possible, and if the performer is planning on not having an encore, or just storms off stage and not going to come back, the lights will come up.
I saw Pitbull a few years ago, and there was no encore. He didn’t explicitly state that there would be no encore, but it was pretty obvious that “Give Me Everything” was the final song of the show. It was his biggest hit at the time, and there was all sorts of confetti, etc.
The Supersuckers never played an encore. Or maybe I should say they always played a Supersuckers Patent Pending Fake Encore. The singer, Eddie Spaghetti, would speak about the pointlessness of the encore as a thing, the band would pretend to leave, the crowd would pretend to demand their return. So maybe it was an encore. Or the absence of one. Hard to say.
edit: why am I speaking about the Supersuckers in the past tense?
I know of two acts who knew that any encore would get the crowd fired up and insist they come out again.
Pink Floyd was one. When they finished up the concert I was at (eight songs, two hours), the crowd was wild. The came back for the encore, and played a first-class extended blues jam. But it wasn’t Pink Floyd music, so there was no clamoring for more.
Sha Na Na dealt with the issue with an encore of “Lovers Never Say Goodbye.”
The only time I personally saw it was when the concert was being simulcast on the radio. They didn’t want the deadtime of waiting for the band to come back and they wanted to exactly fill the time allocated.
The mandatory encore is a recent thing. I don’t recall every band doing an encore in the 90s. Of course I saw cheaper, less huge concerts then. Maybe Elton John did encores in the 90s.
As an every concert thing, encores lost all their appeal for me. Now it’s like “jeez, just take your five minute break in the middle of the show, not right before you’re done, guys”. Speaking of Wilco, both times I saw them they said “You can pretend we walked off stage and we’ll pretend you cheered for us to come back, but here’s our final three songs either way”.
The best encore I witnessed was Silverchair around 1996. The house lights went up, the concert was over, and people were filing out of the venue. But me and my 14 year old buddies stuck around for a few, and then the house lights went off again, and the few of us that were left were treated to a very heavy version of “Israel’s Son”. That’s how an encore should be. The band was actually done, and the house lights came on, and people were leaving, and then they surprised us with an encore. Not “duh, the house lights are still off, that’s code for ‘just wait a minute or two for the rest of the show’”. It has become expected and lame.
I do remember Elvin Bishop at a rock festival going off stage. The crowd went crazy and insisted on an encore. Bishop came out and clearly hadn’t planned for it, so he played the last song again.
Were the people that will still there expecting and hoping for an encore? Do you remember how big of a percentage of the crowd was left? That’s cool that they did that, it’s just surprising.
I saw Bob Dylan in Pittsburgh circa 1995ish, playing outdoors. He did a rather lackluster show, then was halfway through a song, looked at his watch and stopped singing. “Goodnight Pittsburgh!” It was like he’d been paid to do an hour and that was exactly what he did.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, I saw Bonnie Raitt at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh on her thirtieth birthday. She went all-out, drinking from bottles passed to her from the crowd, etc.
When traffic control cops opened the doors, she was on her third encore and she told the police to get the fuck out, it was her birthday and she’d play as long as she wanted.
A couple of times that I remember.
One was Rammstein, they were the final act on some rock festival. Once their initial set was done, people were waiting for the encore (also because the program indicated the show would last another 20 minutes)… but we just got the light being put on and some background music as a “please leave now” thing.
The second time was Dick Dale, who played for about 3 hours and then said his good bye’s… adding: “please don’t ask for an encore, we just played three hours”, or something to that effect.
It was probably 50%. Like I said, I was a teenager so maybe I didn’t have much experience, but I didn’t feel like an encore was a normally expected part of a concert back then. It was a bar show, so I think most of the people left were trying to close out their tabs, or else kids like us in no hurry to go home.
I saw this happen once.
At one of the last WHFStivals in DC (1999? 2000?), the Red Hot Chili Peppers were the closing act. They totally phoned it in, and when they finished their last number, there was only a smattering of applause as the crowd started to head for the exits.
And sure enough, in an emptying stadium, the stage lights came back on, and the RHCPs came back on stage and did an encore as people continued to wander out.
I assume the encore was written into their contract, because there was nothing in the crowd’s response when they left the stage that suggested that people wanted more.
An encore should give the real fans an opportunity to rock out with a little more space while all of the non-fans are filing out to go home to pay the babysitter.
It was a specialty tour, but I saw Roger Waters The Wall twice, and it was just the album (each record was a set, two sets and an intermission) and that’s it. No Encore.