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Elton John Celebrates One More Time With the People He Has Found at Stellar Final New York-Area Show

The Rocket Man visited MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Sunday night for the second time as part of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road goodbye tour.

By Andrew Unterberger

Andrew Unterberger

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Sir Elton John took time during his second performance in as many nights at MetLife Stadium this Sunday (July 24) to share some counting numbers he’d amassed: 247 performances so far on his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, 13 career appearances at the East Rutherford venue (formerly known as Giants Stadium), nearly 30 total lifetime performances in the state of New Jersey. But of course, the most important number on the night was zero: the number of times he’d be returning to the tri-state area following that night’s gig, with the legendary road warrior moving on to other legs of his tour before ultimately retiring from live performance altogether.

The 75 Best Elton John Songs: Staff List

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“So let’s make it a good one, eh?” John suggested, to roaring crowd agreement.

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A good one was indeed made on Sunday, as John’s 23-song set satisfied exactly as a final engagement should, right from the opening piano pounds of “Bennie and the Jets” — repeatedly bringing the entire stadium crowd to their feet, despite the sweltering 90-plus degree July heat. John’s catalogue of smash hits and fan favorites is so vast that he can afford to leave as many as four of his nine Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits completely off his set list (and another couple No. 2s to boot) and have their absence barely be noticeable; by the time he got to the evening’s one true deep cut (a thunderous “Have Mercy on the Criminal,” from 1973’s Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player ) it almost felt shocking to hear a song without a chorus that was already intimately familiar. (It was flanked on both sides by timeless classic rock standards “Tiny Dancer” and “Rocket Man,” just to be on the safe side.)

And even after over a half a century of touring and 247 dates on this trek alone, Sir Elton still sounds and feels very much like Sir Elton. At age 75, he’s certainly aware of his vocal limits — six-minute mega-ballad “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” was pitched down to a less trying key, and he let the audience fill in the falsetto’d “ laaaaa la-la-la-la-laaaa… ” refrain to “Crocodile Rock” — and he’s obviously dialed back the physicality and performative gaudiness that once made a live signature, with only some sparkly jackets and a go-to move of picking up and slamming down his piano lid really nodding to the ostentatiousness of his early years. But his unmistakable baritone sounds as mighty and resonant as ever, and his energy at the ivories remains positively infectious — even if, after a workout like a gospel double-time finish to Madman Across the Water staple “Levon,” he collapsed on his piano in exaggerated exhaustion while taking his bows.

Those bows came nearly after every song, from first to last — in a way that not only allowed the tens of thousands of generations-spanning fans in attendance to express proper appreciation for both his superlative performance that night and the lifetime’s worth of entertainment the Rocket Man had provided for them, but also allowed him to return the favor. As John paced the stage to huge ovations between songs, he pointed each time at various pockets of the stadium crowd, either encouraging them with an inaudible “ all right! ” or “ come on! ” or thanking them for their support, tonight and through the decades.

Perhaps the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s most touching display of gratitude for his tri-state fanbase came with his performance of “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters,” his  Honky Chateau  highlight inspired by New York City. “This is the last time I’m ever going to play this song,” John vowed to the East Rutherford crowd. “I wanted to play it for you.” The song, which would be a career-defining signature number for nearly any other performer, hasn’t lost a bit of its wide-eyed, platonically romantic wonder over half a century — and the idea of getting to hear its words of finding one’s place in the big city (“I thank the lord for the people I have found”) live for the final time after no doubt thousands of lifetime performances was incredibly moving. (This writer probably won’t be the only one checking John’s future FYBR setlists to see if he makes good on his promise.)

It was just one highlight of many across a night that hewed to the crowd-pleasers without making them feel stale. “Rocket Man” was stretched out to prog-rock lengths by an extended outro of Sir Elton and longtime sideman David Johnstone seemingly talking to each other, Close Encounters of the Third Kind -style, via piano, warped vocals and slide guitar transmissions. Given a long intro of thunderstorms — which sounded worryingly plausible on the humid July night — FM favorite “Funeral For a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding” made for both an appropriate mid-set costume-change break and then an absolutely riotous second act opener, starting a run of classics that proved stunningly sustainable for John, right up to the three-song encore.

You wouldn’t have called it a career-spanning set, exactly — only one song performed on the night came from after 1984, a somewhat surprising dismissal of a long portion of his career where John continually proved more relevant than 99% of his ’70s  and early ’80s peers, with dozens of hit singles and even one RIAA Diamond-certified soundtrack album. But the one hit from that period he did perform was his most recent, the 2021 Dua Lipa and PNAU collab “Cold Heart,” and it was quite a testament to the 75-year-old’s career longevity that he could save a song for his encore that was still subsiding in the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, making some of the teenagers in attendance screech with recognition from its opening bass thumps.

Lipa herself did not appear to perform her vocals on the track — she did her half of the duet over video, with the crowd of course providing able assistance — and indeed, the NJ/NYC farewell came and went without any surprise special guests, local or otherwise. But one of the most impressive things about John’s live show is that it still has the muscle, excitement and chemistry of a real live band, some of which have been with Sir Elton on and off since the Nixon administration. They’re currently touring stadiums, of course, but it feels like an act tight enough to be scaled back to a tour of 500-cap venues — assuming they could find room for the three separate percussionists — without losing any of its power. It’s the reason why John’s set list can veer from chart-topping pop ballads to ramshackle southern soul rave-ups to 10-plus-minute art-rock symphonies without ever jarring, and the reason why any big-name guests for the evening might’ve felt more like an outsider intrusion than anything.

Towards the end of his encore, John took time to thank the  New York Post for their positive review of his concert at MetLife the previous night, but also to share his incredulity at the number of comments underneath the article expressing disbelief that the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour was still going, and doubting that this would in fact be his final trek. (“We lost two years because of COVID… we should be done by now!” John exclaimed.) But there certainly was an air of finality to his majestic ending performance of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” particularly as his seat started rising at song’s close — carrying him off the stage and up to that great yellow brick road in the sky, as displayed on the closing video projection.

The set’s most awe-inspiring (and unexpectedly touching) moment came earlier, however, in a performance of his career-revitalizing 1983 hit “I’m Still Standing.” The song was matched with a rapid-fire video montage of John’s life in pop culture, spanning from ’70s appearances on Soul Train and  The Muppets through clips from his MTV peak of the early ’80s, through animated cameos at the turn of the century on era-defining TV shows like  South Park  and  The Simpsons , right up to his promotion of his  Me autobiography and the “Cold Heart” music video from recent years. It was overwhelming to see a lifetime’s worth of Elton memories evoked in three and a half minutes, demonstrating how he’s been as much of a consistent fixture in our lives as any other entertainer of the past half-century. The implication was clear: After all of that, Elton is in fact still standing — and he’s more than earned the right to finally take a seat.

Bennie and the Jets Philadelphia Freedom I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues Border Song Tiny Dancer Have Mercy on the Criminal Rocket Man Take Me to the Pilot Someone Saved My Life Tonight Levon Candle in the Wind Funeral For a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding Burn Down the Mission Sad Songs (Say So Much) Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me The Bitch Is Back I’m Still Standing Crocodile Rock Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting

Cold Heart Your Song Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

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LIVE REVIEW: Elton John – Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour – Xcel Energy Center St. Paul, March 23rd 2022

St. paul, mn 3/23/2022.

25 March 2022 Tommy Sommers

Elton John   said goodbye last night to Minnesota one last time with show number 201 0f the tour. He reminisced about all the different times that he had played in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul metro area. The first time being in 1970 at the Guthrie Theater in downtown Minneapolis. That is one hell run!

For any of you reading this that are into heavier rock or metal, the bands you support owe something to   Elton John . You don’t have to look any further than his 1973 release, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Specifically, the song that most of you know, “Saturday Nights Alright for Fighting”. The hooks, melody, and hard driving guitar parts became a signature sound for him through the 70s.

For   Elton John   fans, it was a true walk down memory lane. It was so wonderful to see so many of the musicians that have played with him for 50 years back with him for this tour. The most notable names are,   Davey Johnstone   who is responsible for all those incredible guitar parts through the years,   Nigel Olson   on drums,   Ray Cooper   on percussion and   Mike Bissonette   on bass. Unfortunately, original bass player   Dee Murray   had passed on several years ago. But it was nice to see them give him a tip of the hat.

It was a bittersweet show for me in that I have such a love of his music and there was never going to be enough time to play all the songs that I love. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a performer at his level with all his hits trying to pick a set list. I think they did an exceptional job covering his 50 plus year career. He went as far back as “Take Me to the Pilot”, all the way up to his latest hit, “Cold Heart”. Proving yet again he can stay relevant in an ever-changing musical landscape.

To my surprise and pleasure, he played one really deep track, “Have Mercy on the Criminal” from his Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player album. That for me made the whole trip worth it. Not to mention the whole band is incredible, as they always are. For those of you that are still curious about seeing him before he’s done, I recommend that you take the time to go. You will hear all the hits including, “Candle in the Wind”, “Rocketman”, “Crocodile Rock”, “I’m Still Standing”, “Bitch is Back”, “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me”, and the closer, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”. It was an incredible performance by an incredible man.

Elton John Electrifies at Final Madison Square Garden Show: Concert Review

By Rebecca Rubin

Rebecca Rubin

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Watching Elton John perform at Madison Square Garden always feels historic; although he’s performed there more than 70 times, he frequently says it’s his favorite stage on Earth.

Even more historic is the feeling of watching him play what he says will be his last show ever at the iconic venue. (Then again, this is a man whose 300-stop worldwide farewell tour began in 2018 and, due to COVID-19, may be going on considerably longer than the 74-year-old originally planned.)

“This is definitely the most magical venue to play in the world,” an emotional John told the New York City crowd on an unseasonably warm Wednesday evening. “I have had so many wonderful nights here.”

He can check off at least one more. Two years and one pandemic behind schedule, John’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour resumed at a sold-out Madison Square Garden — for the second night in a row — to an energetic, vaccinated and mostly mask-less concertgoers. The seemingly tireless entertainer was front-and-center for some 23 songs and two and a half hours, taking only two brief breaks to change outfits and swap his signature bedazzled shades.

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He knows the songs that people came for, and he wasted no time in getting to them. After kicking off the show with a rousing “Bennie and the Jets” segueing into “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues,” John spoke warmly about live music’s return. “How lovely it is to be here after all this time away,” he said. He had the 20,000-strong audience in the palm of his hand for the entire evening, as they swooned to “Tiny Dancer” and “Candle in the Wind.” After a 24-month wait for this show, which was rescheduled from its original April 2020 date, nobody wanted to waste a moment by sitting down.

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Indeed, the entire set was filled with greatest hits from the ‘70s and ‘80s, with only “Cold Heart” — his recent duet with Dua Lipa from his “Lockdown Sessions” album that interpolates four of his earlier songs — dating from this century (and, funnily enough, was sung by Lipa two nights earlier and just a few miles away during her headlining set at UBS Arena in Queens.)

With the exception of a couple of songs (such as “Daniel”), the track list did not deviate much from Elton’s 2019 stop at the storied arena (his 70th at MSG), not that the generation-spanning audience minded. John mostly let his music do the talking, taking only a few moments in between songs to address the crowd. When he did, he spoke passionately about of his love for New York, an area he’s performed 150 shows, and Madison Square Garden, a venue he’s now sold out 72 times.

“This is my last show here,” he noted, and on cue, everyone instinctively and endearingly booed at the mere idea of John hanging up his sparkled suits and glittery glasses. “By the time I finish my last show, I’ll be 76, and I want to spend time with my family and my children. There are other people who will take my place, and you’ll enjoy them.”

After all, he joked, he’s not getting any younger. “When you get to 74 and have a hip, it feels really good,” he said with a laugh. That may be true, but he is nothing less than a completely commanding presence on stage, even after recovering from COVID-19, which recently forced the fully vaccinated star to postpone two shows in Texas. He was in top-notch form on Wednesday night, bursting with energy as he tore through several powerful minutes-long piano solos. He sat parked in front of the keyboard most of the night, only occasionally standing up to soak in the ear-shattering screams on the floor and up through the rafters.

He closed out the show with a lively string of favorites — “The Bitch Is Back,” “I’m Still Standing,” a lively “Crocodile Rock” and “Saturday’s Night’s Alright (for Fighting)” — culminating with golden confetti raining down from the ceiling.

Ever the showman, John pretended to leave the stage only to come back and croon the number that first made him an icon, “Your Song.” And of course the finale had to be “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” which played against a backdrop of sweet and some instantly recognizable photos and videos from his decades-long career.

And with that, a now-tracksuit-clad Elton stepped onto a platform that ascended up the stage as he took his final bow ever at Madison Square Garden.

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An Elton John Concert Is a Weird Setting for a Socialist Anthem

And it helps explain why Elton John remains so vital today.

If you’re not familiar with “Burn Down the Mission,” it’s a sprawling pop song from John’s 1970 Tumbleweed Collection in which the hero sets fire to a wealthy person’s home to keep his family alive. “Behind four walls of stone the rich man sleeps,” John sings. “It's time we put the flame torch to their keep.”

The chorus then rings out:

Burn down the mission If we're gonna stay alive Watch the black smoke fly to heaven See the red flame light the sky.

The song is both jubilant and mournful, as the hero who sets the blaze is taken away in front of his wife. “Burn Down the Mission” is now among the 24 songs on John’s setlist for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour, which stopped at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center for two nights last week. He’s transformed the song into a 10-minute extravaganza that brought much of the crowd to its feet. Many of them, I assume, are the very people who might live in that stone house.

I suppose, with this reading of the song, it’s a little weird rising from $250 seats to sing along to “burn dowwwwwn the mission if we’re gonna stay alive.” But it’s also characteristic of John’s music, which is something of a paradox in that it’s both specific enough to evoke a feeling—this song is about socialism—and ambiguous enough to welcome disparate interpretations. Or, at the very least, bring about a visceral feeling of joy.

John didn’t write the lyrics for “Burn Down the Mission.” Bernie Taupin did. In fact, Taupin is responsible for the words behind John’s most iconic ‘70s tracks, from “Your Song” to “Bennie and the Jets.” He would write the lyrics and John would set them to music, sometimes, famously, in a matter of minutes. (A testament to John’s true musical genius.)

That paradox—the specificity and ambiguity—are a core attraction to John’s work from the 1970s, when he had seven No. 1 albums in a row. "Burn Down the Mission," for instance, might not be heard as a socialist anthem in a different era. At the height of the Reagan years, it was probably just a killer pop song. In fact, there's a performance of "Burn Down the Mission" from the Sydney Opera House, where John is decked out in a whig and 18th century costume. The era along with the staging give the tune a whole new meaning.

Again, it comes down to the paradox, the specificity and ambiguity, which allow his listeners to pour whatever feelings they might have into his music—whether it's socialism or, in my case, something far more personal.

An Elton John album first came into my possession when I was a 14-year-old high-school freshmen, who’d just broken his leg playing football. (I had bargained and cajoled my mom, who was convinced football was a dangerous sport, to let me play. Her instincts were correct.) I say the album, Elton John’s Greatest Hits Volume 2 , “came into my possession” because I didn’t buy, borrow, or steal it. The CD just showed up in my collection, and I listened to it in the car with my mom, who drove my hobbled self around the Chicago suburbs—to school, to physical therapy appointments, to football games where I was perched on crutches on the sideline.

Songs like “Levon” and “The Bitch is Back” became the soundtrack for a formative time of my life, when everyone else was listening to “Cotton Eye Joe” and “Roll To Me.” It was an escape for a teenager trapped in a cast, and in his mom’s car. When John played "Levon"—a song Taupin once described as “about a guy who wants to get away from his father’s hold over him”—at Barclays Center I was transported and transcendent. The song is as good played live today as it was in 1995 or, I imagine, in 1971 when it came out.

Twenty-four years later, my leg healed but my mom still mournful that she let me play football, I share Elton John music with my youngest daughter, Elaine, who is five-months old. Somehow, she will only fall asleep to John’s music, usually in my arms. It’s unclear why this happens, or how my wife and I discovered it, but “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” is like a visit from the sandman for Elaine. And now, all these years later, I have a new relationship with John’s music. It belongs to Elaine and me.

And so at Barclays Center, when John played “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” I was transported to right now, when I rock my daughter to sleep. And the song—which is ostensibly about a man ending a relationship with a woman—is, in my mind, about this tiny little girl saving my life every night.

That kind of intimacy seemed to resonate with the thousands of other people at Barclays, where John, who is now 71 years old, spent hours banging away at his piano, giving the audience a survey of nearly all his hits, while chiming in with stories about his evolution as a person and an artist. (At one point he also called attention to Rami Malek, who was in the audience with his girlfriend, Lucy Boynton, just before dedicating a song to Queen.) At one point, he returned the intimacy by thanking the audience for buying his records, eight-tracks, cassettes, CDs, and concert tickets. John is not an aging rock icon who drags himself on stage, belches out the hits, and collects a paycheck. His live act seems every bit as enjoyable as it might have four decades ago.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what any of his songs are actually about. What matters, and John seems to understand this like any great artist, is that the song belongs to the person in the $250 seat, or in the car with his mom, or bouncing around a darkened bedroom with a baby girl in your arms in the wee hours of the morning.

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Elton John review, O2 Arena: A dazzling, emotional goodbye from one of history’s greatest showmen

What could have been a cheap final cash-in turns out to be a rich origin story for the nostalgic singer, article bookmarked.

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In the reflected light of Elton John’s diamond-studded lapels, aided by the hundreds of flashing pairs of Elton specs out in the arena, the end of the road – yellow brick, naturally – is in sight. We’ve fallen for the arena-filling farewell tour scam so often now that it’s an industry joke – Roger Waters is currently on what’s nudgingly billed as his first. But five years and almost 300 shows into Elton John ’s globe straddling long goodbye – Farewell Yellow Brick Road, the highest-grossing tour in history – it’s hard to doubt Sir Reg’s sincerity.

“I need to be with my family,” the ultimate piano man tells the O2 Arena as he says his goodbyes, gazing back fondly at his 500-plus UK shows over 52 years, and forward to his purported final gig in Sweden in July, via a Glastonbury headline set. “I’ve done enough schlepping in my lifetime.”

At 76, the fourth best-selling artist of all time intends to leave us with a sepia portrait of himself as a far younger man. The setlist is almost entirely drawn from his first nine albums; only four of its 23 songs date post-1975, and those come slathered in nostalgia. “I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues”, its overblown arrangement emphasising its fundamental Chas & Dave-ness, comes accompanied by pictures of Seventies couples losing interest in each other; “I’m Still Standing” by a collage of showman Eltons through the ages, from rising phoenix to Louis XIV. For the rest, he time-warps us back to that early Seventies period when one in 50 records sold worldwide were Elton’s, and he bestrode the world’s stage decked out, more often than not, like the Mayor of Munchkinland.

As a diamond bust of himself gazes down from the stage-wide screen – as it has, in effect, over pop culture for five decades – Elton and his formidable band of besuited drummers and double-necked guitarists pile into the plodding brilliance of “Bennie and the Jets”, the glitzy boogie of “Philadelphia Freedom” and a rare “Border Song” dedicated to Aretha Franklin and set to images of human rights champions across history: Franklin, John and Yoko, Mandela, Pussy Riot. This is no cursory plough through the obligatory hits, then, but a deep-ish dive into the foundational era of the grandmaster of the bellow ballad and king of the bespectacled boogie. For every “Sad Songs (Say So Much)” or “The B**** is Back”, there’s a sultry noir “Have Mercy on the Criminal”, 1970’s piano prog powerhouse “Burn Down the Mission”, or a high-drama “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” about Elton’s 1968 suicide attempt. What could have been a cheap final cash-in turns out to be a rich origin story.

Hits do abound, of course. “Tiny Dancer” appears early as testament to a craftsmanship that would be almost unthinkable in today’s please-the-algorithm age, building sonic tension over several minutes to a timeless pay-off of a chorus, delivered with a smile that’s pure Vegas. The crowds, clad in their spangliest frocks and blazers for the occasion, rise to bask in the fireworks of “Rocket Man”’s celestial gospel. “Candle in the Wind” literally glides along – Elton’s motorised piano does a full circuit of the stage while he’s playing it. The rock ballast of “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” neatly counteracts “Crocodile Rock”’s corny boogie, and the transcendent emotion of “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” is only slightly marred by the mass brawl that breaks out in block B2. Sunday night’s perfectly acceptable too, it appears.

Elton’s occasional pub singer tendency to bark rough approximations of his lyrics muddies “Levon” and “Take Me to the Pilot”, but he otherwise seems utterly rejuvenated by the performance. After each major tune, he punches the air or flexes his biceps like he’s just KO’d Tyson Fury – you’d think he could crack on for another 50 years or so. As he emerges for the encore in a jewel-studded dressing gown for a karaoke duet with a virtual Dua Lipa on “Cold Heart” – his disco-fied “Sacrifice” – the final curtain clearly beckons, and we’re in for a teary send-off. Tonight, 52 years in, “Your Song” proves itself still capable of giving the gods goosebumps and a bitter-sweet “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” closes, in typically irreverent fashion, with Elton riding a stairlift to the stars. There’ll be musical life beyond the yellow brick road, he promises, but the stage will certainly seem bereft without one of history’s greatest showmen.

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Review: Elton John made his ‘Farewell Yellow Brick Road’ concert at Petco Park a night to remember

The music legend and his crack six-man band performed 23 songs in their two-hour-plus concert at the sold-out stadium

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If Elton John is really going to retire at the end of his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road: The Final Tour,” he’s going out with a major league bang, not a halfhearted bunt.

He resoundingly proved this with his triumphant Wednesday night concert at San Diego’s Petco Park, where the generations-transcending superstar and his ace six-man band performed for a sold-out audience of 40,000 very enthusiastic fans.

“Tonight, we’ll have the best time you can possibly have,” he vowed after completing “Philadelphia Freedom,” his second selection of the night. Thankfully, it was not an empty promise.

At 75, it would have been easy for John to simply punch the clock and do short, perfunctory versions of his greatest hits before grabbing the money and running. His farewell tour — which began in 2018 and included a memorable 2019 show at Pechanga Arena San Diego — has already grossed $661 million as of last month, according to the music industry magazine Billboard.

Review: Elton John heartfelt and flashy at his San Diego farewell tour concert

Elton John had only performed the first two songs of his Tuesday night “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” retirement tour concert in San Diego when he turned to the audience and apologized.

Jan. 30, 2019

But John does not appear to be in any hurry. And, much to his credit, he is clearly not short-changing his audiences.

His Petco Park concert featured 23 songs that, together, clocked in at two-hours and 23 minutes. It opened with “Bennie and the Jets” and concluded with the title track to John’s 1973 double-album, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” which inspired the name of what is billed as the final concert tour of his now 53-year-long solo career.

In between came a slew of golden classics, including “Tiny Dancer,” “Rocket Man,” “Levon” and “Your Song.” John’s red-hot version of “Burn Down the Mission” was performed with so much fire it made the mock flames — which briefly appeared on the stage’s giant video screens — seem silly and redundant. (The full set list appears at the conclusion of this review.)

Just as potent were his back-to-back versions of “The Bitch is Back,” “I’m Still Standing,” Crocodile Rock” and “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” which brought John’s 19-song main set to a rousing close before his three encore selections.

It is possible, of course, that he had a good incentive to rock with more vigor than usual Wednesday. The temperature was 56 degrees when John took the stage at 8:09 p.m. under a nearly full moon. It dipped to 51 by the time the show concluded at 10:32 p.m.

But John didn’t even mention the chilly (by San Diego standards) night. Instead, he played with palpable conviction on all but one of his nearly two-dozen selections.

That sole misfire came with was his first encore, “Cold Heart,” which found John sitting at his Yamaha grand piano — but not playing it — and only singing intermittently while a virtual Dua Lipa mimed her vocals, to a pre-recorded, EDM-lite-flavored backing track, on the video screens. John suddenly seemed like a bystander at his own show.

Happily, the rest of his set was on target. It included two songs he did not perform at his 2019 Pechanga Arena show — the bluesy 1973 deep-album cut “Have Mercy on the Criminal” and 2002’s “Sorry Seems to be the Saddest Word.”

John’s marathon concert was well-paced and delivered with the polish and precision you would expect from such a veteran performer and his first-rate band. Happily, he injected even his best-known songs with new vigor and freshness by changing or stretching out the arrangements.

Of course, no one will ever mistake John and his band for Phish or the latest iteration of the Grateful Dead. But the extended instrumental excursions on the suitably spacey “Rocket Man” and a super-charged “Take Me to the Pilot” were a treat, with John and guitarist Davey Johnstone trading lines and sometimes soloing in unison.

When John broke into a sparkling, double-time piano break in “Levon,” his ear-to-ear beam made it look like he was having the time of his life. He injected full-fisted, barrelhouse piano romps one moment and delicate filigrees the next, all in service of the song at hand.

Near the end of his Petco Park concert, John warmly thanked the audience for its decades of support and noted that Wednesday marked the 266th concert of his farewell tour. His first show here, he recalled, was in September 1971 at the nearby Community Concourse.

“I’ve had an amazing career.” he said. “Next year, I’ll be 76 and I want to spend the rest of the time with my (two) sons and David (Furnish, his husband).”

Elton John’s ‘Farewell Yellow Brick Road’ world tour is nearing its end, but is he really going to retire?

The legendary singer-songwriter returns for a sold-out show at Petco Park. It’s the second time his farewell tour has come to San Diego. Will it be the last? And does his future lay online with avatars and Roblox?

Nov. 3, 2022

Fair enough. But the joy John exuded here on stage, like the exultation he inspired in his listeners, begs a question.

After an ample amount of time has passed, could Elton John find himself yearning to make music again, live and in real time, and to hear the roar of the crowd once more? Perhaps not on a world tour, but at periodic concerts?

Here’s hoping.

Elton John, Petco Park set list

1. “Bennie and the Jets”

2. “Philadelphia Freedom”

3. “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues”

4. “Border Song”

5. “Tiny Dancer”

6. “Have Mercy on the Criminal”

7. “Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be a Long, Long Time)”

8. “Take Me to the Pilot”

9. “Someone Saved My Life Tonight”

10. “Levon”

11. “Candle in the Wind”

12. “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding”

13. “Burn Down the Mission”

14. “Sad Songs (Say So Much)”

15. “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word”

16. “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”

17. “The Bitch is Back”

18. “I’m Still Standing”

19. “Crocodile Rock”

20. “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting”

1. “Cold Heart”

2. “Your Song”

3. “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”

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Live Review

Elton John Stays Flashy on the Long Road to Farewell

By Jon Pareles

• Oct. 19, 2018

Elton John began saying his goodbyes to New York City on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden, starting a two-night stand there. It was his first local stop on his three-year, globe-spanning Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, with a show that lasts more than two and a half hours and doesn’t even have room for all of his hits.

Although the newest song in the set, “Believe,” was released in 1995, there were some fans who had been born since then singing along to his catalog, which conquered American pop radio in the early 1970s and has never entirely disappeared. Last month, Young Thug released “High,” which is built (with John’s enthusiastic permission ) on “Rocket Man,” from 1972.

At 71, John has long since earned his retirement from the road. He has been touring, he said onstage, since 1969. He has racked up hundreds of millions of sales and the awards that go with them, and has scored hit Broadway musicals (“The Lion King,” “Billy Elliot”) on the side. Through the years, he has been a thoroughgoing crowd pleaser. On Thursday night, his most contentious speech was about how “greedy” drug companies could help end AIDS.

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He doesn’t jump on top of his piano anymore, or kick up both legs while pounding the keyboard the way he used to, as shown in a career-spanning video montage while he sang his ever more appropriate boast about perseverance, “I’m Still Standing.” Yet he has stayed vigorous, still splashing his two-fisted chords and singing with focused gusto. Musicians who have been with him since the 1970s — Nigel Olsson on drums; Ray Cooper on percussion; and his bandleader, Davey Johnstone, on guitar — easily execute their longtime parts.

Familiar as they are now, John’s hits are eccentric at heart. Although he is English, he chose to ground himself deeply in American music — gospel, boogie-woogie, blues, country, early rock ’n’ roll — as much as in England’s traditions of hymns and music hall. The lyrics, which are largely written by Bernie Taupin and then set to music by John, can be as oblique as “Levon” or as blunt as “The Bitch Is Back”; they can be character studies, like “Tiny Dancer,” or semi-biographical, like “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.”

But his hits became hits because some part of his music lodges immediately, and tenaciously, in memory. When he cued the audience to sing “la, la la la la la” in “Crocodile Rock,” there was no hesitation across the arena. The concert began with John seated at the piano, hitting one chord hard and waiting, knowingly, for it to register — not long at all. That one chord was instantly recognizable as the beginning of “Bennie and the Jets”: a song about a pop star for the “kids” who is famous as much for her image — “electric boots, a mohair suit” — as her music. She could be an idol, or a stand-in, for the guy singing about her. Bespectacled and balding, John traded initially on talent more than looks, then went on to revel in outlandishly costumed excess as soon as he commanded big stages.

John is making a typically flamboyant visual farewell . During little breaks on Thursday, he switched from a black, gold-sequined, pink-lapeled suit to a flowered brocade jacket with pink pants to an elaborately embroidered blue robe, with corresponding eyeglasses. He also performed at what appeared to be a self-driving grand piano that could cross the stage as he played, below a video screen framed by a frieze of career highlights. Some of the video clips, like the Los Angeles street scenes played above “Tiny Dancer,” were distracting, while in “Rocket Man,” images of Earth seen from space were just right.

At what was billed as a farewell concert, what stood out was how many farewells Taupin and John were already writing decades ago. One of the only non-hits that John chose to feature was “Indian Sunset,” a song about Native American genocide, the most final farewell. The other non-hit was “All the Girls Love Alice,” a rocking requiem for a promiscuous lesbian teenager. “Love Lies Bleeding,” with its instrumental introduction “Funeral for a Friend,” is a musician’s farewell to a lover who left, and “Daniel,” as a video revealed, is a farewell to a soldier lost in battle. “Candle in the Wind” bid farewell to Marilyn Monroe as a victim of stardom.

The concert’s finale — spoiler alert — was “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” a 1973 song about turning away from stardom and going back to the farm: something John obviously did not do. He has earned stardom, maintained it, exulted in it. “I will miss you very, very much,” he told the arena audience as he spoke about retiring from touring. But not soon. He returns to Madison Square Garden more than once: Nov. 8-9 and March 5-6; there’s a Nassau Coliseum date on Nov. 16, 2019. For now, the road continues.

Elton John The Farewell Yellow Brick Road runs through November 2019; eltonjohn.com/tours.

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Review: Elton John says goodbye with ‘Farewell Yellow Brick Road’ show at the Wells Fargo Center

It was the first of two farewell shows in South Philadelphia for the British piano man.

Elton John is just getting started on saying goodbye. Tuesday night's first of two sold-out concerts at the Wells Fargo Center was just the second on the British piano player's Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour, which kicked off Sunday night in Allentown and which is scheduled to spend the next three years traveling the globe.

Routing through Philadelphia at the start gave John, 71, an opportunity to begin his sentimental journey in a place that's resonated with meaning for him for nearly  half a century.

"It's great to be here in a city where I have so many memories," he said at the start of the two-hour, 40-minute hit-packed, career-spanning show, which began just a few minutes after 8. "It's 48 years to the day since I first played Philadelphia at the Electric Factory."

As John pointed out last weekend on his Rocket Hour Beats 1 radio show on Apple Music, that initial date at the original factory at 22nd and Arch Streets marked the start of a special relationship between the British songwriter born Reginald Dwight and the City of Brotherly Love .

His 1975 hit "Philadelphia Freedom," which was delivered in a boisterous version early on Tuesday evening, was written not just as a gift for his friend Billie Jean King and her Philadelphia Freedoms World Team Tennis franchise, he explained, but also as a celebration of the sound of Philadelphia soul music he holds dear.

Much has changed for Sir Elton since he played that 1970 show on a baby grand piano that rested on plastic crates to keep from falling over. It was in support of his self-titled second album, whose plaintive hits "Your Song" and "Border Song," both of which he performed Tuesday night, made him a star.

But musically, much has stayed the same. At the Wells Fargo Center, he led a seven-man band whose core members have been with him for decades, including percussionist Ray Cooper, guitarist Davey Johnstone, and drummer Nigel Olsson, who was with him at the original factory date and who these days bears a resemblance to actor Christopher Plummer.

That sense of continuity coursed throughout the show, which got off to a bumpy start with a muddled, booming sound mix on the opening one-two punch of the thumping "Benny & the Jets" and raucous "All the Young Girls Love Alice." The latter is a deep cut from 1973's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road that was an early signal that this goodbye tour was going to deliver cherished non-single tracks along with the hits.

The start was also made inauspicious by the sort of technical difficulties that aren't unexpected at the beginning of a tour. At first, John's vocals weren't properly in sync with the images on the big screen behind him and the two smaller ones on either side up in the rafters.

Those glitches were thankfully soon remedied, and John and his band, which also included Matt Bissonette, Kim Bullard on keyboards, and John Mahon on additional percussion and vocals, soon settled into a comfortable conversation with the singer's capacious catalog and the loyal audience he took pains to thank standing behind an "old fart" such as himself for so long.

John was discursive in his between-song patter, remembering writing the entirety of the music for the 1975 album Captain Fantastic & the Brown Dirt Cowboy on an ocean liner sailing from England to New York, and talking about how a desire to spend time with Zachary, 7, and Elijah, 5, his sons with his husband, David Furnish, convinced him it was time to pack it in.

Prefacing "Indian Sunset," he sang the praises of his longtime writing partner, Bernie Taupin, who was at Tuesday's show, explaining that the duo's working method has always been for Taupin to give him finished lyrics that he then composes music for. "We've never sat in a room together."

Flamboyance, of course, is John's figurative middle name — though the 'H' on his 'E.H.J.' monogrammed jumpsuits stands for Hercules. And costume-wise, the septuagenarian showman didn't disappoint glam rock enthusiasts, with a three-outfit night, all custom designed by Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele, that started out with a lavishly embroidered tailcoat ensemble. Goofy glasses were de rigeur , most endearingly so with the heart-shaped pair he wore during the encore, during which he sat on his piano bench in a pink bathrobe, like your lovable Uncle Elton.

For all John's sartorial flair, though, Tuesday's show was at heart a reminder that his success has always been rooted in rock-solid musicianship. If anything, it was the visual aspect that was a mild disappointment. Clips of happy young people dancing during "Philadelphia Freedom" were distracting. If you're not going to have actual dancers, just show us the band. And though it was entertaining to see images of Elton throughout his life as an enduring celebrity — from Soul Train to The Simpsons to Carpool Karaoke — a montage of movie fight scenes during "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" was just silly.

But the crucial question for an artist of John's vintage, of course, is: Can he still sing? The answer is yes. His voice has thickened over the years, but it's still an effective instrument, whether putting across soft-focus ballads like  "Candle in the Wind" — which was accompanied by a David LaChappelle film that recreates Bert Stern's final Marilyn Monroe photo shoot using a lookalike model — or more roaring, robust workouts like "Levon," which brought the first set to a high-energy peak shortly before the brief intermission.

And John, who paid tribute to Aretha Franklin and other heroes with "Border Song," really relished playing his piano, bringing Fat Domino swagger to a bluesy "Sad Songs (Say So Much)," and leaning hard into his left hand on "Levon," or relishing shifting gears and tempos in a fiery and fun "Burn Down the Mission." After that track from 1970's Tumbleweed Connection , he popped up off his bench and shouted, "Come on!" back at the crowd, exulting in the rapport he still enjoys with his adoring audience, as he prepares for his final exit.

Elton John Announces Final North American Dates for ‘Farewell Yellow Brick Road’ Tour

By Althea Legaspi

Althea Legaspi

Elton John has announced the final North American leg of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, which takes place in 2022.

The new dates kick off at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia on July 15th and culminate with a two-night stint at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on November 19th and 20th. Tickets go on sale on June 30th, with presale tickets available to American Express card members beginning on Wednesday at noon local time.

“Hello, all you wonderful fans out there. I’m coming to you today with an announcement I’ve been working towards for, well, all my life: The shows that I announce today will be my final tour dates ever in North America and Europe,” John said in a statement. “I’m going to go out in the biggest possible way, performing at my very best, with the most spectacular production I’ve ever had, playing in places that have meant so much to me throughout my career.”

In September, John announced makeup dates for the tour, which was postponed due to the pandemic. The rescheduled trek runs from January through April. The newly announced final dates include 30 stadium shows, with a run of performances in Europe from May to June before he heads to North America. Tickets to those dates sold out quickly but there are seats available through VividSeats.com .

John launched the  Farewell Yellow Brick Road  tour in September 2018 in  Allentown, Pennsylvania . It was originally slated to run for three years, but the pandemic forced it off the road in March 2020. Two Auckland, New Zealand, shows are also planned for January 27th and 28th, 2023, with the four-year tour concluding sometime in 2023 in Australia with a string of shows to be announced at a later date.

“Whether it’s next summer in Frankfurt or at the legendary Dodger Stadium for the grand finale in the United States, I can’t wait to see you all on the road one last time,” John added. “This has been an incredible tour so far, full of the most amazing highs, and I look forward to making more wonderful memories with you at these final shows. To all my friends down under: We’ll be seeing you, too. Thank you and I look forward to seeing you in your town.”

Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour 2022 Final North American Dates July 15 – Philadelphia, PA @ Citizens Bank Park July 18 –  Detroit, MI @ Comerica Park July 23 – East Rutherford, NJ @ MetLife Stadium July 28 – Foxboro, MA @ Gillette Stadium July 30 – Cleveland, OH @ Progressive Field August 5 – Chicago, IL @ Soldier Field September 7 – Toronto, ON @ Rogers Centre September 10 – Syracuse, NY @ Carrier Dome September 16 – Pittsburgh, PA @ PNC Park September 18 – Charlotte, NC @ Bank of America Stadium September 22 – Atlanta, GA @  Mercedes-Benz Stadium September 24 – Washington, DC @ Nationals Park September 30 – Arlington, TX @ Globe Life Field October 2 – Nashville, TN @ Nissan Stadium October 21 –  Vancouver, BC @ BC Place October 29 – San Antonio, TX @ Alamodome November 4 – Houston, TX @ Minute Maid Park November 12 – Phoenix, AZ @ Chase Field November 19 – Los Angeles, CA @ Dodger Stadium November 20 – Los Angeles, CA @ Dodger Stadium

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• Artists Profiles

REVIEW – ELTON JOHN: FAREWELL YELLOW BRICK ROAD TOUR – AAMI PARK, MELBOURNE

• Greg Phillips
• January 15, 2023
• News , Reviews

Review: Greg Phillips Photos: Jonathan White

It was 49 years ago, almost to the day that I first saw Elton John perform at the South Melbourne Football Ground, merely 5 months after the release of his iconic double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road . A lifetime of achievements have since occurred for the legendary musician, including 300 million in record sales and a lifetime of memories have been experienced by his fans. It’s hard to believe that this is the last time we’ll ever see Elton John on tour again in Australia. In fact, we thought we’d seen the last of Elton a couple of years ago but thanks to the rescheduling of a couple of New Zealand shows due to the pandemic, he tagged on another farewell Australian tour to make it all worth his while.

So it has come to this, Elton John’s 52nd (he tells us) and final tour performance in Melbourne, a city which has meant so much to him. It’s where he recorded his 1987 album Live in Australia with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, a concert I was also blessed to be at.   Tonight, in searing heat, around 30,000 fans gave Elton the welcome he thoroughly deserved as the music icon walked to the stage and took his position at the Yamaha grand piano. There aren’t many songs in rock history that you recognise immediately from one single note but Bennie and The Jets is certainly one of them. A perfectly executed Philadelphia Freedom followed and the barrage of hits had begun. I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues was next and only three songs in, it was obvious that the man’s vocal strength is still there, albeit in a lower register than he performed in five decades ago.

Border Song gave Elton the opportunity to pay tribute to soul queen Aretha Franklin, who gave   Elton and his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin the ultimate compliment by recording his song in 1972 for her album Young, Gifted and Black . Tiny Dancer , a song off his 1971 album Madman Across The Water , probably didn’t receive the attention it really deserved until it was used as part of the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe’s 2000 hit movie Almost Famous . There was a strong melancholic feel about tonight’s version, as we knew this was the last we’d hear it live. Likewise, Rocket Man , spurred on by the recent success of the movie based on the life and career of Elton John, was received in different ways tonight. Depending on your age, it was either the soundtrack of your life in real time in the seventies or a new addition to your Spotify list in 2019.

Candle In The Wind was never one of my personal favourites but to the world it became synonymous with the death of Princess Diana. Of course it was met with rapturous applause tonight. Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding however, has always been an Elton John track I’ve greatly admired and the band’s performance of it at AAMI park was superb. So many great musicians have been in and out of Elton’s bands over the last five decades and significantly for this tour, stalwarts Davey Johnstone (guitar) Ray Cooper (percussion) and Nigel Olsson (drums) were all back to see the journey through to the end. You forget how many celebrated guitar solos Davey Johnstone has added to Elton’s songs and Love Lies Bleeding gave the guitar great an opportunity to shine. Like the previous song, Burn Down The Mission is not a short tune and after two extended   jams in a row, the 36 degree heat had Elton slumping over the piano to briefly catch his breath.

As the sun set and darkness began to descend, the full effect of the huge stage screens and lighting system kicked in, with the audience adding their own smartphone light show to the mix. Ironically, it was Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me which saw the end to Saturday’s daylight.

Those who attended the previous night’s show in Melbourne had to endure Elton’s longtime friend Molly Meldrum bare his arse on stage during The Bitch is Back . Thankfully tonight, as much as we love Molly, we didn’t get a repeat performance of his impromptu moon dance. No Molly in sight tonight, however ‘Bitch’ was the beginning of a rocking run home. The crowd by now was fully invested in having the time of their lives. I’m Still Standing followed and absolutely nobody was sitting down anymore. Another superb guitar solo was delivered by Davey, played on his impressive Yellow Brick Road-painted Les Paul. Crocodile Rock gave Elton some vocal rest time as the audience en masse was more than happy to supply the chorus. Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting up next and you realise just how many historic rock staples the man has given us. After such a herculean effort by the band in the heat, they leave the stage to rehydrate but we know they’re far from done.

Elton returns to the stage sans band to euphoric applause, this time not for just an amazing show but in acknowledgment of a life and career lived like no other. There is only one Elton John and tonight it is we that are thanking you. The rocket man has succeeded for so long because he’s been able to adapt to the times and always be relevant. Recent successful collaborations with Dua Lipa and Britney Spears are proof that even as he hangs up the boots, Elton John still has what it takes to top the charts globally. With that in mind, he leads the audience in an a cappella version of Cold Heart . As Elton takes the verse, tonight we are all Dua Lipa! It’s a beautiful intimate moment between an iconic artist we love and 30,000 adoring Melbournians, although the amount of foreign accents heard prior to the gig suggest that there’s been plenty of fan fly-ins from all parts of the globe to join the farewell party. Your Song is our song and we sing along with gusto for the last time.

Elton takes to the microphone to say his final goodbyes. He thanks the city of Melbourne and Australian fans in general for making him feel so at home. He tells us his kids have also fallen in love with the country. He singles out one individual fan in the front row who as attended 55 Elton gigs. He tells us to “look after ourselves, be kind to each other. I wish you happiness, love health and prosperity and goodbye and farewell,” as he launches into Goodbye Yellow Brick Road for the last time. We sing uninhibitedly, like nobody’s watching and the applause at the end was at a level I’ve never heard before and of course he encourages us to roar even louder. He turns to reveal the letters EJ on the back of his jacket, a vision replicated on the screen behind him as he walks off down an animated yellow brick road. Thank you Sir Elton John for a game well played.

Set list. AAMI Park. Saturday January 14, 2023

Bennie and The Jets Philadelphia Freedom I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues Border Song Tiny Dancer Have Mercy On The Criminal Rocket Man Take Me To The Pilot Someone Saved My Life Tonight Levon Candle In The Wind Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding Burn Down The Mission Sad Songs Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word Don’t let The Sun Go Down On Me The Bitch is Back I’m Still Standing Crocodile Rock Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting Cold Heart Your Song Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Remaining dates on the tour

Tue 17 Jan Allianz Stadium, Sydney, NSW

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Wed 18 Jan Allianz Stadium, Sydney, NSW

Sat 21 Jan Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, QLD

Tue 24 Jan Orangetheory Stadium, Christchurch, NZ

RESCHEDULED SHOWS – TICKETS ON SALE NOW

Fri 27 Jan Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland, NZ

Sat 28 Jan Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland, NZ

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Watch Elton John perform an emotional ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ on final night of farewell tour

Sir Elton originally embarked on the 'Farewell Yellow Brick Road' tour in September 2018

Elton John has officially completed his ‘Farewell Yellow Brick Road’ world tour in Stockholm, after 333 shows and nearly five years.

• READ MORE: Elton John live at Glastonbury: one of the festival’s best-ever headline sets

Performing in the city’s Tele2 Arena on Saturday night (July 8), John’s final song of the night – and, by extension, the entire tour – was the tour’s semi-title track, ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’. Before performing the song, Sir Elton gave a final speech to the reported 45,000 people in attendance to thank them for their support across his entire career.

“I’ve had the most wonderful career… beyond belief,” said John (via Rolling Stone ). “Fifty years of pure joy playing music… how lucky am I? I wouldn’t be sitting here… it wasn’t for you. You bought the singles, the CDs, the albums, the cassettes… [and] more importantly, you bought the tickets to the shows. You know how much I love to play live. It’s been my lifeblood to play for you guys. You’ve been absolutely magnificent.”

Watch the full speech and final song performance below:

‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ was originally released in 1973, and served as both the second single and title title track of John’s seventh studio album. The song reached the top ten on the singles chart in the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and South Africa.

Per setlist.fm , John has performed the song live approximately 1475 times over the last 50 years. It has served as the set closer for nearly every performance on the ‘Farewell Yellow Brick Road’ tour, which originally began in September 2018 at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The tour continued across North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand up to March 2020, after which the tour was postponed for almost two years on account of both the COVID-19 pandemic and a hip injury that required John to undergo an operation in order to recover from.

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The tour resumed in January 2022 at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, and would see John back on the road consistently for the next 18 months. His final show in the UK took place as the headliner of Glastonbury , where he was joined by guests such as Brandon Flowers and Rina Sawayama . In May 2023, the tour was officially recognised as the highest-grossing world tour of all time .

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Published on January 14th, 2023 | by Scott De Lacy

Elton John – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – Farewell tour – Melbourne Concert Review

Very few musicians can claim to have an audience that spans multiple generations, or a career spanning 60 years, but Sir Elton John can.

The hottest ticket in town right now is Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour, which is the culmination of 61 years of Elton’s career, and the last chance you will ever have to see his tremendous showmanship and talent live.

The Friday the 13 th performance at AAMI Park stadium was full of multiple generations including children through to seniors, many whom dressed up with glitter-frocks, boa’s, T-shirts and of course flashing glasses. The excitement, anticipation, love and affection from his fans could be seen and felt all around.

From the moment the stage lights came to life and no more than a toe of Elton was visible to some, the crowd erupted, and then one all-to-familiar chord was heard throughout, bringing a simultaneous silence and roar of the crowd; it was Bennie And The Jets. The entire night the band were on point and they really knew how to get the crowd going. The stage setup was also incredible, with multiple screens displaying a variety of visuals that perfectly complemented the music. Elton John’s outfits were also a highlight, as each one was more extravagant and show-stopping than the last.

The Elton John Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour at Melbourne’s AAMI Park stadium was nothing short of spectacular. The legendary musician and his band expertly commanded the stage, playing hit after hit and keeping the crowd on their feet throughout the entire performance.

The atmosphere was electric, with the crowd really coming alive in the second half of the show as the lights went down and the stars came out. The visuals on the screens cycling through original music video releases, artworks, performance art, personal photos of Elton and closeups of Elton and the band.

One of the defining characteristics of the concert was Elton John’s ability to connect with the audience. Throughout the performance, he frequently interacted with the crowd, sharing anecdotes about his music and paying tribute to other artists. He even acknowledged personal friends in the audience, showcasing his genuine appreciation for his fans and his enjoyment of performing for them. It was clear that this connection was genuinely felt by the audience and was a major highlight of the show, which contributed to the overall memorable experience.

One of the highlights of the night was when Molly Meldrum was identified in the audience and later joined Elton on stage, showing off his bare bum and tattoo to the crowd during the “Bitch is Back.” It added an element of surprise and humour to an already amazing show. It then turned to what was one of the sweetest and touching moments of the night, where our world renown and respected Aussie icon Molly, gave Elton a hug and a kiss and said “I love you”, which was met with massive applause.

Overall, this concert was a must-see for any Elton John fan, and even for those who may not be as familiar with his music. It was a night filled with endless musical and visual spectacles that will be remembered for years to come.

Elton concluded the night with an encore performance of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, as he disappeared into the back of the stage, a fitting but sombre, yet spectacular reminder which was not lost on the crowd, that this was indeed a farewell.

As Molly would say, do yourself a favour, and buy some tickets , if you can find them!

Images © Jonathan White

Summary: The hottest ticket in town, you will regret it if you miss it. Do yourself a favour and go see him in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane while you can.

About the Author

Scott De Lacy Scott has a professional IT background spanning over 18 years, is an hobbyist electronics designer, talented musician, holds qualifications as a trainer and experience in emergency and community services sectors. He reviews Movies, PC and XBOX One games, and hardware.

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"Those were crazy times. I wouldn’t change it for the world": how Goodbye Yellow Brick Road reinforced Elton John's status as a global superstar

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is the second-biggest-selling album released in 1973, with more than 32 million sales worldwide

‘There were several roads nearby, but it did not take Dorothy long to find the one paved with yellow bricks. Within a short time, she was walking briskly toward the Emerald City; her silver shoes tinkling merrily on the hard, yellow roadbed.’ - The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz , 1900

July 1973. It can now be confirmed. Elton John ’s rocket ship has officially left Earth’s atmosphere. His latest hit-laden album, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player , released at the start of the year, is his second in a row to top the charts in both Britain and America. Now his uncharacteristically barnstorming new single Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting is in the UK Top 10, and Elton is on his way to becoming an authentic rock god – bigger than The Beatles ; stranger than the Stones; more glitter than Gary. 

The transformation begun when Crocodile Rock , already a hit in the UK, gave him his first US No.1 single in February. In Britain, just 12 months before, Elton was still a one-hit wonder known for Your Song . In America his fame was more widespread but still anchored in bearded singer-songwriter mode, respectfully bespectacled crooner of Your Song and its more knowing companion Tiny Dancer . 

Saturday Night’s Alright is his fifth major hit since Rocket Man unlocked the doors to the world’s singles charts the previous summer. Resulting TV appearances sporting ever more bizarre eyewear and a no-limits attitude to on-stage costumery unseen since the diamond daze of Liberace have transformed public perception of the singer from earnest musical artisan to glammed-up, arena-headlining rock star. 

Elton John is 26 and will never be so high again. High in the charts, high on the recent launch of his own record label, Rocket Records, high on his new name, now legally changed to Elton Hercules John. (Hercules because it was the name of the horse in the TV sitcom Steptoe And Son and Elton was a fan, true story.) Soon to be even higher on a new grand passion: cocaine. 

Inside, though, he is still chubby four-eyed Reggie Dwight, the insecure closeted teen from a broken home. As he confessed in his 2019 memoir, Me , despite becoming the biggest-selling star in the world in the early 70s, he was always filled with “self-loathing”. 

“There was no solitude, no reflection,” he confessed. “I was still the little boy from Pinner Hill Road underneath it all.” Nobody would have guessed it from seeing him on Top Of The Pops , dressed in spangly bovver boots and braces, pounding on the piano on Saturday Night’s Alright like Jerry Lee Lewis on black-and-white TV in 1957.

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That single is up to No.7, and even butch Slade and Mott The Hoople fans are stomping their platforms and shaking out their dandruff to it. No one believes for a second that Elton is really a bottlewielding brawler with ‘a bellyful of beer’ any more than they believe his mate Marc Bolan is really a magic elf. But these are still the smoke-filled days when you must fight for your right to be on the UK’s biggest TV music show. You might be David Bowie with Life On Mars , but you are more likely to be Alvin Stardust with My Coo Ca Choo . Elton John wishes to appeal to both sets of fans.

Now his wish is coming true. His real journey has finally begun. He’s travelling the yellow brick road, destination: Emerald City, where everything is the colour of bejewelled greenbacks.

Elton John may have reinvented himself as a singles star, but everyone knew it was his albums where the real treasure was to be found. He’d never made a bad one, had the gold records in America to show for it. Now the unexpected leap from the gloomy prog-rock of Madman Across the Water in 1971 to the swaggering confidence of the glorious Honky Château in ’72 had led to a brace of multimillion-selling albums and no less than five multimillion-selling singles in the space of barely a year. 

With that journey leaving him so completely at ease in his new, more elevated role as rock star with a capital ‘R’, Elton now felt he could turn his hand to anything his writing partner Bernie Taupin’s lyrics suggested. 

His backing group – 22-year-old guitarist Davey Johnstone, 27-yearold bassist Dee Murray and 24-yearold drummer Nigel Olsson, soon to be formally named the Elton John Band – had a sound as instantly identifiable as T.Rex or Rod Stewart . His US label, MCA, thought he’d shit the bed when Saturday Night’s Alright made only No.12 there. But the message got through. This was no longer weepy James Taylor-style soul-searching, this was rock’n’roll genocide à la The Who and Led Zeppelin . 

Outwardly, Elton was on a roll. Inwardly he feared it might all just blow away any second. The only safeguard was to keep going and see how far his new ruby slippers could take him. To that end he had released five albums in the past three years. He had also already recorded the 17 songs that would comprise his seventh, from which Saturday Night’s Alright was the first track to be launched like a fireball. 

However, when he announced that his next album would be a double, enigmatically titled Goodbye Yellow Brick Road , there was a sharp intake of breath. You had to admire the audacity, but surely a sturdy third to complete a Honky Château-Don’t Shoot Me triptych was the right move. MCA certainly thought so. But Elton knew better. The Beatles, he pointed out, “did the White Album and now we’ll have our double too”.

A double album in 1973 was more than an artistic statement, it was a status symbol, a collection demanding everybody’s attention. Only rock giants made double albums. Bob Dylan had framed the conversation in 1966 with Blonde On Blonde , as Jimi Hendrix would do in ’68 with Electric Ladyland . The Rolling Stones followed suit in ’72 with Exile On Main St . All stone-cold classics. Conferring the kind of cachet no amount of money can buy. 

Now Elton wanted his music to be exalted in the same way. Only one caveat: if you were going to release a double album in 1973, it had better be better than good. It had better be fucking good. 

Yet Elton denied he was under pressure. “It felt like there was an unstoppable momentum behind me,” he said.

When Elton and his travelling band arrived in Kingston, Jamaica in January 1973 to begin working on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road , they looked on it as an adventure. It wasn’t until they arrived that the scale of that ultimately doomed enterprise sunk in. 

Byron Lee’s Dynamic Sounds Studio was a 180-degree turn from the elegant confines of the Château d’Hérouville where he’d made both Honky Château and Don’t Shoot Me . The 18th-century Château was situated in lush French countryside 40 miles north of Paris. Converted into a state-of-the-art 16-track residential recording facility in 1969 by the French experimental composer Michel Magne, it boasted 30 rooms, outbuildings, a swimming pool and a tennis court. Gourmet meals would be prepared every night by the resident chef, and fine wines procured from local vineyards. 

Dynamic Sounds, once the home of Bob Marley’s Wailers, Toots And The Maytals and other herbaceous reggae pioneers, was a hot, dusty compound full of out-of-date gear and unsettling vibes. Producer Gus Dudgeon had ordered a raft of new equipment to be ready for when they arrived, but it never showed up. Elton’s grand piano didn’t arrive either, and the cobwebby old studio piano was a joke. The disconcertingly downcast mood was not helped by the facility having 24-hour armed guards patrolling the barbed wire perimeter. 

Elton and entourage had arrived the morning after George Foreman knocked out Joe Frazier at Kingston’s National Stadium in two brutal rounds for the boxing heavyweight championship of the world. Violence hung heavy over the city for days afterwards. With every hotel overflowing, Elton found himself billeted at the Pink Flamingo Hotel, in the middle of teeming Kingston, while everybody else was taken to a luxurious resort location across the island in Ocho Rios.

Elton was too terrified to step outside the hotel. When news arrived that Don’t Shoot Me had gone to No.1 in America, a celebration dinner was arranged at the Pink Flamingo. But Elton refused to join, and sulked in his room. 

When he arrived for the first day’s recording at Dynamic to find Gus and the band still trying to figure out how to make things work, it was the last straw. The vibes, man, they did not augur. “It’s hard to see how they could have been,” said Bernie Taupin, “with guards holding machine-guns outside the door.”

Elton returned in a huff to the Pink Flamingo and didn’t come out again for three days. Unable to sit still without worrying, he worked through a stack of new lyrics from Bernie. Dozens of sheets, neatly typed, that he sat alone in his room and wrote music for on a portable electric piano. By the morning of the fourth day he had 21 new songs, with titles including Bennie And The Jets, Candle In The Wind, Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road . They just needed to be recorded. 

Once it became clear that wouldn’t be happening at Dynamic, they fled to New York, chased to the airport by various shady Jamaican ‘business figures’, many of whom carried guns. 

Better news awaited. The Château was available, opened again after a temporary closure. Recording began the moment they arrived back in France. Two weeks later they were done. 

“It was insane,” guitarist Davey Johnstone recalled when we spoke. “We were this factory, songwriting and recording together. As soon as we recorded it and released it, we’d take it straight out on tour. In the States especially it was just this giant unstoppable juggernaut.”

With a 35-date summer US tour booked to begin in August, first single Saturday Night’s Alright was released in July, the perfect crowd teaser. The clincher came in September with the second single, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road . The cathedral-like title track of the forthcoming album was Elton John and Bernie Taupin at their bitter-sweetest, their most sepulchral yet somehow uplifting. Their giddy peak. Bernie using his countryside upbringing to characterise London life as a place ‘where the dogs of society howl’, all the while dreaming of ‘going back to my plough’. 

Half a century later it would be the last song Elton chose to sing every night on his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, elegiac and pure. Bernie’s undisguised autobiography having evolved into Elton’s musical epitaph, the yellow brick road the symbol of his journey from smalltown Pinner to big-time pop stardom.

The rest of the album was a jamboree of familiar Taupin tropes – mythmaking American yarns (Roy Rodgers; The Ballad Of Danny Bailey (1909-1934) ); his parochial childhood, but with a new twist ( Saturday Night’s Alright was less about horny-backed toads and more about the dodgy Lincolnshire dancehalls of his teens); the pitfalls of Hollyweird fame ( Candle In The Wind : the working title of the album Silent Movies , Talking Pictures ); and the sometimes coarse nature of love (the achingly poignant I ’ve Seen That Movie Too ). 

There was also some of the most juvenile material Bernie had ever asked Elton to put music and voice to: the grungy Dirty Little Girl , about, well, an ardent but unhygienic fan; Social Disease , the everyday tale of a bibulous tenant humping his landlady; Sweet Painted Lady , about a sailor’s favourite port-in-a-storm prostitute; All The Girls Love Alice , about a wistful teenage lesbian dreaming of ‘two dykes in a go-go’. 

“It is a pretty blue record,” Bernie reflected years later. “I was a young kid, a horny twenty-three-year-old, among a lot of other horny twenty-somethings… I was basically writing about my fantasies at the time.” 

There was also the ‘problematic’ to modern tastes Jamaica Jerk-Off , Elton chirruping in a faux ‘islands’ accent over a white-bread reggae lilt. But then Paul Simon, who recorded his 1972 hit Mother And Child Reunion at Dynamic the year before, had been similarly ‘inspired’. As was Mick Jagger when the Stones churned out their own ‘reggae-influenced’ track Luxury , also recorded at Dynamic.

On a double album comprised of 17 tracks, however, these were flimsy side salads adjacent on the plate to the juicy steaks of reputation-crowning moments like the 11-minute opus Funeral for A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding , a synth-laden prog overture that slowly builds into a bonfire of blazing cut-glass guitars, strategically detonating drums and a rhythmic hook so heavy it draws blood. 

Next up, Candle in The Wind , Bernie’s eulogy to Marylin Monroe and one of Elton’s finest ever ballads, Johnstone’s guitar motif twinkling like the neon ooze of Sunset Strip at night. Another hit single in the UK in February ’74, at first it wasn’t released in America, where MCA surprisingly chose the jokey Bennie And The Jets instead. 

Elton was not happy. “I said ‘No, I want Candle In The Wind’. Guess who was wrong?” 

For Elton, Candle In The Wind was class; Bennie And The Jets was throwaway. But when two R&B radio stations in Detroit started playing it and saw their listenership skyrocket, MCA made it Elton’s next single. The result, in April 1974, was his second American No.1 single, selling more than two million copies. 

On Bennie , the deliberate-mistake piano intro had prompted Dudgeon to, as he put it, “fake-live this”. Mixing in audience sounds from Elton’s show at London’s Royal Festival Hall a year before, along with audience crackle from Jimi Hendrix’s performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight festival , and some ambient mayhem from an Elton show in Vancouver, it would become the second most famous song on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road . 

Other album highlights: Grey Seal , originally a fey B-side to Elton’s 1970 flop single Rock And Roll Madonna , now reborn as a Bowie-meets-Beatles showstopper; the harum-scarum Your Sister Can’t Twist (But She Can Rock’n’Roll) ; saving the best for last, almost, with the gorgeously swooning closer Harmony . Any of these could have been hit singles, and ift his had been the CD-driven 80s they would have been. But these were still the two-vinyl-LPs-a-year 70s, and Elton had already recorded his next album, Caribou , due out just nine months after Goodbye Yellow Brick Road . There simply wasn’t time for more singles.

Released in October 1973, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road again topped both the UK and US charts (in the latter for eight consecutive weeks). As befitting its double-album eminence, it came in a lavish gatefold sleeve designed by illustrator and children’s novelist Ian Beck: the cartoon image of a stack-heeled Elton stepping from a down-at-heel city onto a yellow brick road winding towards a sun that was either rising or setting depending on your mood. 

The Goodbye Yellow Brick Road US tour was conducted from the same private Boeing 720B that Led Zeppelin had toured in that summer, the now infamous Starship. It had the words ‘ELTON JOHN BAND TOUR’ now emblazoned down one side of its red, white and blue fuselage, and came fitted with luxury leather lounge seats, proper dinner tables, a pseudo-electric coal fire, a fully stocked bar and TV lounge and – très chic, dear – a new-fangled video player. 

On board was also an electric Thomas organ, which Elton studiously ignored, and, in a rear cabin, a king-sized double bed covered in shaggy white fur which nobody slept in but many guests enjoyed. Unless Elton was having one of his tantrums. Then he would disappear in there for however long it took for him to calm down again. 

In a group photograph taken standing in front of his new floating palace, a wonderfully camp Elton is seen in a white-and-turquoise jumpsuit, a wide-brimmed Panama hat cheerfully atop his head, wielding a soul-brother ebony cane. Surrounded by a vast entourage of tour technicians, record label bigwigs, assistants, gofers,the four-man Muscle Shoals horn section, manager and lover John Reid, plus the band and singer Kiki Dee, recently signed to Elton’s label Rocket, who Davey was “having a scene with”. 

Exactly three years on from his breakthrough shows at the tiny Troubadour club in LA, Elton now headlined the Hollywood Bowl and the Long Beach Arena on consecutive nights. Two weeks after that he headlined New York’s Madison Square Garden for the first time. If Goodbye Yellow Brick Road , in all its versions – single-album-allegory-hymn – is about transcending humdrum reality, then the American tour, which ran until October, found Elton’s life transformed entirely into fantasy.

It was the same for Bernie, who toured with Elton. He didn’t need to, he wanted to. Bernie had been deeply in love with America since he was a child gaping at The Lone Ranger on TV. Most of his songs were about, or set in, or have characters from, or cultural references, dreamscapes and an almost cinematic sense of the real – in America. That America now loved him too was so far over the rainbow for Bernie that he would have trouble coming back. 

It was the same for the band and everyone else rocking in the clouds on the Starship. But while everyone else had a way to turn the volume down a notch if they wanted to – the band idled in peace; Bernie walked unmolested – Elton couldn’t escape any of it for a second. He sang, he wrote, he performed, he did all the press, all the TV and radio, all the business meetings. His was the face everyone knew. Now it had become a human shield for everybody’s bad behaviour but his own. 

“We weren’t angels, but we didn’t get dragged into the spotlight because Elton took the heat for all that,” Davey Johnstone told me frankly. “We did a lot of music together and had a lot of fun together too. A lot of fun.” 

He chuckled. “I’ve got to tell you. I can’t say that it was terrible. Waking up with a hangover after being up for two days was a nightmare. But we were young enough to be able to wake up and go: ‘I’m going to sleep for the next day so I’m okay for what’s coming up.’ But those were crazy times. I wouldn’t change it for the world.” 

In December 1973, Elton finished a 13-date UK tour on a triumphant note with three sold-out shows at London’s Hammersmith Odeon. It coincided nicely with his surprise novelty single Step Into Christmas sharing the Top 10 that week with other soon-to-be-perennial cool Yule classics like Slade ’s Merry Xmas Everybody and Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday . For Elton John, for now, it felt like it was.

Mick Wall is the UK's best-known rock writer, author and TV and radio programme maker, and is the author of numerous critically-acclaimed books, including definitive, bestselling titles on Led Zeppelin ( When Giants Walked the Earth ), Metallica ( Enter Night ), AC/DC ( Hell Ain't a Bad Place To Be ), Black Sabbath ( Symptom of the Universe ), Lou Reed, The Doors ( Love Becomes a Funeral Pyre ), Guns N' Roses and Lemmy. He lives in England.

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Farewell Yellow Brick Road: The Final Tour

It is with great excitement that Elton announces the final dates for his award-winning Farewell Yellow Brick Road: The Final Tour in North America and Europe.

Elton will conclude his world-famous tour at major stadiums which will kick off on May 27, 2022 in Frankfurt. The Final Tour will make stops in Europe in major cities such as Milan, Liverpool, and Paris. Elton will then travel across the pond to take his final bow in North America, playing in major cities including Vancouver, Toronto, East Rutherford, Chicago and more. The North American stadium run will kick off at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia on July 15, 2022 before concluding with back-to-back performances at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on November 19 and 20, 2022 — commemorating his iconic performance at the historic venue in October 1975. 2023 kicks off with two shows in Auckland, New Zealand on January 27 and 28, followed by soon-to-be-announced dates in Australia before the epic 4-year tour formally concludes there later that year.

Public on-sales begin Tuesday, June 29 in Europe and Wednesday, June 30 in North America.

Rocket Club members will have access to an exclusive pre-sale beginning on Friday, June 25 in North America and Monday, June 28 in Europe.

Fri, May 27 2022 Deutsche Bank Park, Frankfurt – Tickets

Sun, May 29 2022 Red Bull Arena, Leipzig – Tickets

Sat, June 04 2022 San Siro Stadium, Milan – Tickets

Tue, June 07 2022 CASA Arena, Horsens – On Sale Sept. ’21

Thu, June 09 2022 Gelredome, Arnhem – Tickets

Sat, June 11 2022 La Defense Arena, Paris – Tickets

Sat, June 12 2022 La Defense Arena, Paris – Tickets

Wed, June 15 2022 Carrow Road, Norwich – Tickets

Fri, June 17 2022 Anfield Stadium, Liverpool – Tickets

Sun, June 19 2022 Stadium of Light, Sunderland – Tickets

Wed, June 22 2022 Ashton Gate Stadium, Bristol – Tickets

Wed, June 29 2022 Liberty Stadium, Swansea – Tickets

Fri, July 1 2022 Pairc Ui Chaoimh, Cork – On Sale Jul. ’21

Fri, July 15 2022 Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia, PA – Tickets

Mon, July 18 2022 Comerica Park, Detroit, MI – Tickets

Sat, July 23 2022 MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ – Tickets

Thu, July 28 2022 Gillette Stadium, Foxboro, MA – Tickets

Sat, July 30 2022 Progressive Field, Cleveland, OH – Tickets

Fri, August 05 2022 Soldier Field, Chicago, IL – Tickets

Sun, September 07 2022 Rogers Centre, Toronto, ON – Tickets

Sat, September 10 2022 Carrier Dome, Syracuse, NY – Tickets

Fri, September 16 2022 PNC Park, Pittsburgh, PA – Tickets

Sun, September 18 2022 Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, NC – Tickets

Thu, September 22 2022 Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, GA – Tickets

Sat, September 24 2022 Nationals Park, Washington, DC – Tickets

Fri, September 30 2022 Globe Life Field, Arlington, TX – Tickets

Sun, October 02 2022 Nissan Stadium, Nashville, TN – Tickets

Fri, October 21 2022 BC Place, Vancouver, BC – Tickets

Sat, October 29 2022 Alamodome, San Antonio, TX – Tickets

Fri, November 04 2022 Minute Maid Park, Houston, TX – Tickets

Sat, November 12 2022 Chase Field, Phoenix, AZ – Tickets

Sat, November 19 2022 Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, CA – Tickets

Sun, November 20 2022 Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, CA – Tickets

Become a Rocket Club member and exclusive news will make its way directly to your inbox. Be the first to know where Elton will perform next and get your hands on pre-sale tickets.

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• June 5, 2024 Setlist

Elton John Setlist at Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas, NV, USA

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• Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding Play Video
• Bennie and the Jets Play Video
• I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues Play Video
• Philadelphia Freedom Play Video
• Tiny Dancer Play Video
• Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Play Video
• Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time) Play Video
• Levon Play Video
• Candle in the Wind Play Video
• Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me Play Video
• The Bitch Is Back Play Video
• I'm Still Standing Play Video
• Crocodile Rock Play Video
• Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting Play Video
• Cold Heart Play Video
• Your Song Play Video

Note: Private show for Cisco Live! attendees; backed by his live show band

Edits and Comments

17 activities (last edit by jeffmw , 9 Jun 2024, 21:56 Etc/UTC )

Songs on Albums

• Bennie and the Jets
• Candle in the Wind
• Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
• Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
• Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting
• Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me
• The Bitch Is Back
• Tiny Dancer
• I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues
• I'm Still Standing
• Crocodile Rock
• Philadelphia Freedom
• Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time)

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Glastonbury Festival 2023 Highlights: GnR, Elton, CRJ

Elton john gig timeline.

• Dec 19 2023 Teatro La Fenice Venice, Italy Add time Add time
• Mar 20 2024 Gershwin Prize 2024 Washington, DC, USA Add time Add time
• Jun 05 2024 Allegiant Stadium This Setlist Las Vegas, NV, USA Add time Add time

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Tour Update

Marquee memories: quarters of change.

• Quarters of Change
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Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

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Knight moves: Sir Elton commands millions in corporate gig

I n November 2022, Elton John told his crowd at Allegiant Stadium he’d performed 469 shows in Las Vegas. Now it’s 470, as he has tacked on a lucrative corporate gig .

Sir Elton was the superstar headliner Wednesday night at AI communications company Cisco Live at Allegiant Stadium. Industry sources report a rock legend in John’s strata would receive $5 million for such a show.

This was a full buyout of the venue, with a plan for 15,000 attendees, though some estimates far higher. The stadium was set in the same configuration for John’s Allegiant show in ’22, the lower bowl filled, but the upper level was unoccupied.

More than 50,000 conventioneers were expected at the four-day event.

Cisco is the international digital communication company based in San Jose, California. Its convention opened Sunday and closes Thursday. Tom Brady delivered the keynote address Wednesday morning. F1 star Oscar Piastri was among the celeb guests.

Sir Elton played his characteristically hit-filled set, with “Rocket Man,” “Candle In The Wind” and “Benny and the Jets” in the mix. This was a full show, 90 minutes, with his backing band, which was said to be as tight as ever.

John presented his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” series as his last tour, ever. We’ve heard that before, from myriad superstars (including the Eagles, who are still touring and are expected to announce a run at the Sphere, any time now). There has been speculation in the Las Vegas entertainment community that John could return to Las Vegas, possibly with a scaled-back residency on the Strip.

As he said in his show in ’22, the “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” rocker has played Las Vegas more than any city throughout his 50-plus year career.

John hosted two series at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, “The Red Piano” from 2004-09, and “Million Dollar Piano” from 2011-18. John played 444 shows in those two residencies.

The 77-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer started his run in Vegas in September 1971 , with a show at Las Vegas Convention Center. Among his headlining performances, Sir Elton has also played the late, great Circus Maximus at Caesars Palace on New Year’s Eve 1999, and several shows at MGM Grand Garden with Billy Joel in 2001 and 2003.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts . Contact him at [email protected]. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.

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