elton john yellow brick road tour 1973

"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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The Story of... 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' by Elton John

23 June 2023, 09:48 | Updated: 24 June 2023, 10:47

By Thomas Curtis-Horsfall

Listen to this article

It's widely considered to be one of Elton John's finest songs.

The ballad 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' evokes leaving a life behind and being content with the decision made to finally move on.

Obviously, the imagery used, borrowing from the iconic Yellow Brick Road in the magical movie The Wizard of Oz helps the song's sweeping, tear-jerking motive.

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Ever since the song was released, it's been an ever-present in Elton John setlists throughout the entirety of his career, and for good reason.

But who wrote 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road'? What's the meaning behind the song? Was it a success when it was first released? Here's all you need to know:

Who wrote 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road'?

Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Top of the Pops 1973) HD

Like most of Elton John's early work, his songwriter extraordinaire Bernie Taupin penned the lyrics to 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road'.

Writing the words over the course of two-and-a-half weeks, Elton wrote the music to the song in just three days whilst the pair worked in Kingston, Jamaica.

After The Rolling Stones recorded their 1973 album Goats Head Soup there, Bernie wanted to try Jamaica, though they didn't stay for long due to political and economic disruption, instead relocating to Strawberry Studios (Château d'Hérouville) in France where they'd finish the sessions.

Using the cinematic metaphor from The Wizard Of Oz , 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' hints at nostalgia for childhood and culture left in the past, something that defined Taupin's earlier writing.

What was the meaning behind 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road'?

Whilst Bernie often wrote either about Elton or outside inspirations for his songs, 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' was one of the rare songs he'd written about himself.

In the movie The Wizard Of Oz , the central character Dorothy (played by Judy Garland who was the supposed inspiration) and her friends follow the Yellow Brick Road in search of the mysterious titular wizard, only to find what they were looking for all along. This is the metaphor Bernie used as he was longing to return to his "roots".

The lyrics refer to giving up a life of excess and opulence for one of quiet and simplicity in a rural setting - whilst Elton had an extravagant lifestyle, Bernie was the polar opposite.

Talking about the song in 2014, he said: "It's been said many times, but Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is a cinematic album."

"The lyrics to the title track do say that I want to leave Oz and get back to the farm. I think that's still my M.O. these days. I don't mind getting out there and doing what everybody else was doing, but I always had to have an escape hatch."

He reflected further in a later interview, saying: "There was a period when I was going through that whole 'got to get back to my roots' thing, which spawned a lot of like-minded songs in the early days, this being one of them."

"I don't believe I was ever turning my back on success or saying I didn't want it. I just don't believe I was ever that naïve. I think I was just hoping that maybe there was a happy medium way to exist successfully in a more tranquil setting," he continued.

'My only naiveté, I guess, was believing I could do it so early on. I had to travel a long road and visit the school of hard knocks before I could come even close to achieving that goal. So, thank God I can say quite categorically that I am home."

Does the song mean "goodbye" for Elton John now?

After over half a century on the road, in his twilight years, Elton John has finally come round to Bernie's previous kind of thinking.

In 2018, Elton revealed he'd be retiring from live touring entirely (and understandably at the tender age of 71 at the time) and announced his final ever tour, the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour which riffed on the name of his melancholic ballad.

Citing the fact he wanted to spend his days with his children, Elton was finally ready for the quiet life, despite the tour lasting a total of five years due to Covid and medical delays, culminating in Stockholm, Sweden on 8th July 2023.

The tour - which includes Elton's final ever UK live performance at Glastonbury Festival - has grossed £680 million from 309 shows making it the highest-grossing tour of all-time.

Throughout his lengthy farewell tour, Elton has ended each epic performance with 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road', a fitting end to a fantastical career in music.

How was 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' received after it was first released?

'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' was the second single to be released from Elton's 1973 album of the same name.

Upon its release it surpassed the success of his previous single, the rowdy 'Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting', and was a top ten hit in both the UK and the US where his fame was picking up steam.

The song received glowing reviews across the board - it helped his album become a major critical and commercial success, and was called "a vocal triumph" and a "pinnacle of its style".

Years later, Rolling Stone magazine added it to their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and it frequently features at the top of Elton's greatest songs lists.

Has anyone else covered 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road'?

Elton John & Billy Joel - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Madison Square Garden, NYC 2000)HD *Remastered

Even though the song is synonymous with Elton John, a few notable artists have tried their hand at performing 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road'.

Billy Joel covered the song in 1994, with Elton later inviting him to perform it alongside him during his One Night Only: The Greatest Hits Live at Madison Square Garden concert.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Legendary instrumental rock 'n' roll group The Shadows have also tried their hand at 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road', as have hard rockers Queens of the Stone Age, who Elton himself is a known fan of.

Covering the track for Elton's 2018 Mark Ronson -produced tribute album, Revamp , Queens of the Stone Age singer Josh Homme said: "It's nice to pick something that may seem off kilter at first for us to do."

"But 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' really has the psychedelic carousel nature to it. I think at first we thought we will tinker with the arrangement, but there's so many beautiful chords."

"The chord progression is so wonderful - once you step on that carousel, it's just this beautiful musical swirl and it's really intoxicating to be on that carousel."

Sara Bareilles - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Live from Atlanta)

American singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles covered 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' in 2013, which wowed Elton John so much he was desperate to collaborate or perform with her.

His wish came to fruition the following year when the pair combined for a duet on 'Gravity', Bareilles' 2007 track which they performed at the annual Hot Pink Party, the benefit event for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Sara Bareilles and Sir Elton John - Gravity (Duet)

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Elton John Rockets Toward Retirement With a Sparkling Dodger Stadium Finale

Nearly a half-century after rocking dodger stadium for the first time, elton john bid farewell to los angeles with his family on stage at the baseball stadium., by andrew dalton • published november 21, 2022 • updated on november 21, 2022 at 10:00 am.

Forty seven years after he took the stage at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles in a sequined-studded baseball uniform as the world's biggest pop star,  Elton John  walked on to the same stage on Sunday night wearing a bedazzled Dodgers bathrobe, a uniform more fitting for a 75-year-old man on the verge of retirement.

The crowd of more than 50,000 roared at the moment that came in the final minutes of the final North American concert of a tour John says will be his last.

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“I want to spend time with my family because I’ll be 76 next year, he said. “I want to bring them out and show you why I’m retiring.”

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He embraced and kissed his husband, David Furnish, while his two sons, 11-year-old Zachary and 9-year-old Elijah, wearing matching Dodgers jackets that read “Elton” on the back, waved gleefully at the crowd.

John then broke into “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” the inevitable final song that gave the “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour its name.

The crowd full of rocket men and rocket women, of blue jean babies and LA ladies, many John's age but plenty in their 20s and 30s and 40s, swayed and sang along as they had throughout the two-hour show during songs like “Rocket Man” and “Tiny Dancer.” Some wiped away tears.

Many were wearing their own sequins and spangles, sparkling spectacles, top hats, feather boas, and in a few cases, Donald Duck suits, representing stages of John's 55-year career.

“Thank you all for dressing up," John said, "it makes me so happy when you wear the most fantastic costumes.”

When that last song ended, John shed the robe and exposed another retirement outfit, a green-and-red tracksuit, and climbed into a small, clear elevator that lifted him into an opening in the backdrop. He could then be seen on a giant video screen walking down a yellow brick road into the distance.

Many others joined John for the occasion.

Kiki Dee took the stage to sing their duet “Don't Go Breaking My Heart.”

“In 1975 , this woman was here with me, and we sang this song,” John said as he brought out Dee. “I asked her to come and recreate that incredible moment.”

John jumped from his usual keyboard spot, grabbed a mic and sang and danced with Dee as his rehearsal piano player Adam Chester pounded the keys in his place.

John played “Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me” in tribute to the four bandmates who have died during his career, and after the first verse brought on another guest, shouting, “ladies and gentleman, Brandi Carlile!”

The moment was an unspoken tribute to another late collaborator, George Michael, who dueted with John in the same way on the song in 1991.

Carlile, who was central to Joni Mitchell  's recent return to the stage, was wearing her own Dodger-themed spangled suit. She belted out her verses and made a “can you believe this?!” face to the crowd as John put his arm around her and the soaked in the applause.

A drum machine pounded as Dua Lipa, in a black dress that contrasted with the sparkles on everyone else, came out for the first of the encores, “Cold Heart,” her 2021 hit with John.

“I can’t tell you how it feels to be 75 years old and to have the No. 1 record around the world,” John said after. “And this was my very first hit, 52 years ago.”

He started playing piano chords and sang, “It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside," the opening line to 1970's “Your Song.”

“That was your song, Los Angeles!” he shouted after.

About two hours earlier, after taking the stage in a tuxedo with sequins that flared into a flame design and opening the concert with “Benny and the Jets,” he explained the significance of the city to his music.

“All right, this is a very special night for me, a very emotional night for me, and it’s been a long journey, and I first came here to America in 1970 to the City of Angels, Los Angeles, and I played a club called the Troubadour."

The concert, which streamed live on Disney+, was the last of a three-night stand at the stadium (and his 103rd show in the LA area, he told the crowd). The Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour began in September 2018 with the first of the 300-plus scheduled dates. It was suspended in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic and resumed in 2021.

In January, John heads to Australia and New Zealand, then moves on to Britain and Europe. He's set to conclude in Sweden in July, though he's made it clear he is only done traveling, not making music.

Many of those backing him up have been in his band from the start, or very near it, including Nigel Olsson, his drummer since 1969, and Davey Johnstone, his guitarist since 1971, who at age 71 stood at the front of the stage and led the band through a ripping version of “Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting.”

John also provided a rare on-stage glimpse of an even more long-running collaborator, the man who wrote most of the words the crowd sang along with all night, lyricist Bernie Taupin.

“We’ve been writing together now since 1967,” John said as he hugged Taupin, who could not have contrasted with his writing partner more with his bald head and plain, earth-toned coat. “We still love each other more than we’ve ever done before.”

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‘Elton John: Never Too Late’: Toronto Review

By Robert Daniels 2024-09-07T09:03:00+01:00

Disney’s Elton John documentary fails to hit the high notes

Source: TIFF

‘Elton John: Never Too Late’

Dirs: R.J. Cutler and David Furnish. US. 2024. 102mins

Threadbare tour-bio documentary Elton John: Never Too Late combines the audio from a 2019 interview with the ’Crocodile Rock’ singer and footage from his final North American shows in 2022. Directors R.J. Cultler and David Furnish (the singer’s husband) use vintage footage and animation to jump between the 1970s and his recent tour, with Dodger Stadium as the throughline. There in 1975, John, dressed in an iconic sequined Dodger baseball uniform, became the first solo rock act to sell out a stadium and, in 2022, it was the location of his final concert in America. Yet neither story feels fresh. In fact, they’re both so thin it’s difficult to even call this a puff piece. 

 The only thing holding  Elton John: Never Too Late  together is the songs

A Disney documentary,  Elton John: Never Too Late  premieres as a Gala Presentation at Toronto and then heads to London before embarking on a limited US theatrical run in November and bowing on Disney+ in the US on December 13. It’s a challenge to know who will find this film of spare parts appealing. Surely, diehard fans of the singer know the minutest parts of his biography already – not least thanks to the far-more-candid 1997 documentary Tantrums & Tiaras , also directed by Furnish – and casuals are likely to prefer the crowd-pleasing version of his life seen in the musical biopic Rocketman . Ultimately, this will likely blend in with other rote ‘print the legend’ films. 

It’s clear early on that this film is poorly conceived. It deploys the common contemporary documentary framework of building a story around audio tapes – in this case with John, conducted by journalist Alexis Petridis for the singer’s 2019 memoir Me.  Unlike other instances where this has happened (in films about Elizabeth Taylor, Stanley Kubrick and Princess Diana, for example), this subject is alive and well. In the hands of Cutler and Furnish, the audio that powered John’s frank autobiography is re-tooled unimaginatively to recount the basic beats of John’s life: his abusive family; his musical training and influences (Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Winifred Atwell); and his time playing backup for major African American act like the Temptations, the Drifters and Patti La Belle. 

That backgrounding carries viewers to the 1970s, when John and his songwriter partner, lyricist Bernie Taupin, went on a prolific five-year run that witnessed the singer produce 20-plus albums and countless hits, and headline Dodger stadium. It also included John confining himself in an abusive relationship with his manager and partner John Reed, and developing a raging coke habit to self-medicate his depression and loneliness. Once again, none of this is particularly new information. Rather, the pleasure derived from these scenes will mostly amount to vintage photos, footage of his star-making show at LA’s Troubadour in 1970, video of ’Yellow Brick Road’s recording session, and a touching story about how his duet with John Lennon at Madison Square Garden — a show that would be Lennon’s final live performance — led to the Beatles singer reuniting with Yoko Ono. 

Hearing the same stories again would be alright if Cutler and Furnish didn’t force feed an undercooked contemporary storyline into the edit. The present-day sequences, which weave in and out of the walks down memory lane, are frustratingly empty. We begin nine months out from John’s 2022 Dodger Stadium gig, and check in with him at each major stop. As opposed to the frank biographical information, these behind-the-scenes moments – John video chatting with his kids, recording his podcast ’Rocket Hour’ and thanking his longtime band for their wonderful playing — are overly controlled. You know you’re only seeing the best of the singer. 

When intertwined, the two timelines struggle to cohere to a satisfying end. The entire final gig at Dodger Stadium is anti-climatic, totaling three partially performed songs: ’Someone Saved My Life Tonight’, ’I’m Still Standing’, and ‘Your Song’. While it makes sense to spend much of the film abbreviating the jukebox hits for the benefit of time, it’s odd not to let fans luxuriate in these comforting earworms by playing them in their entirety. Because in the end, apart from a few quippy anecdotes, the only thing holding Elton John: Never Too Late together is the songs.  

Production companies: This Machine Filmworks, Rocket Entertainment

Worldwide distribution: Disney+

Producers: R.J. Cutler, David Furnish, Trevor Smith

Screenplay: Embeth Davidtz

Cinematography: Jenna Rosher

Editing: Greg Finton, Poppy Das

Music: Chris Letcher

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Trump and Harris set to give closing statements as extended presidential debate winds down.

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Elton John praises Trump's 'hilarious' nickname for Kim Jong Un: 'Good on you, Donald'

by JACKSON WALKER | The National Desk

WASHINGTON (TND) — Legendary singer Elton John on Sunday told Variety former President Donald Trump’s previous use of his popular song “Rocket Man” was “hilarious.”

Trump during his presidency referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as "Rocket Man." The leader at the time was amassing and testing an arsenal of missiles.

Trump used the barb frequently, even while addressing the U.N.

“Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime,” he said in 2017 before the UN General Assembly. “The United States is ready, willing and able [to respond], but hopefully this will not be necessary.”

John explained Monday he was amused by the use of “Rocket Man.”

I laughed, I thought it was brilliant,” he said. “I just thought ‘good on you, Donald, I’m the Rocket Man.’”

“Donald’s always been a fan of mine, and he’s been to my concerts many, many times,” John continued. “I’ve always been friendly toward him, and I thank him for his support. Yeah, when he did that, I just thought it was hilarious.”

President Joe Biden in 2022 awarded John the National Humanities Medal after hosting him for a performance at the White House.

“Seamus Heaney once wrote, and I quote, ‘Once in a lifetime, the longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme,'" Biden said at the time. "Throughout his incredible career, Sir Elton John has been that tidal wave, a tidal wave to help people rise up and make hope and history rhyme.”

Trump had asked John to perform at his 2017 inauguration, but the singer declined, saying he didn’t think it was appropriate given his British roots.

Follow Jackson Walker on X at @_jlwalker_ for the latest trending national news. Have a news tip? Send it to [email protected].

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• 16. Honky Cat – Elton John [Live at Hammersmith Odeon 1973] 7:16
• 17. Crocodile Rock – Elton John [Live at Hammersmith Odeon 1973] 3:56
• 18. Your Song – Elton John [Live at Hammersmith Odeon 1973] 4:09

Liner Notes Music & Lyrics by ELTON JOHN & BERNIE TAUPIN Produced by GUS DUDGEON, PETER ASHER, ED SHEERAN, MIGUEL, HUNTER HAYES, CHRIS LOCO, PATRICK STUMP, CLAY COOK Orchestral Arrangements by DEL NEWMAN Recorded at Château d’Hérouville, Hérouville, FR and Various Locations

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‘Elton John: Never Too Late’ Review: A Doc More Interested in the Rockstar Than the Man

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Near the end of R.J. Cutler and David Furnish’s documentary “ Elton John : Never Too Late” John says, “It did take me 43 years to learn how to function as a human being rather than a rockstar.” 

At its outset, “Never Too Late” sets up an intriguing structure. It is going to document John as he prepares for the final stop on his farewell tour: Dodger Stadium, the venue that was the site of his incredibly famous 1975 outing, one that is both triumphant and emotionally fraught for the musician given how inexorably linked it is to a suicide attempt. 

And yet the present day material is largely given the short shrift. Instead, “Never Too Late” is a competent but largely conventional look at John, which focuses on the most documented part of his life: His astronomical rise in the first half of the 1970s. With audio taken from an interview with journalist Alex Petridis, originally recorded when John was working on his memoir, the “Rocket Man” singer walks the audience through his difficult childhood, his collaboration with Bernie Taupin, his encounters with fame, his troubled relationship with manager and lover John Reid, his addiction to cocaine, and more. The part of the movie focused on his career essentially ends in 1976 with the Rolling Stone cover story in  which he announced he was bisexual , before jumping ahead to explain how he got sober in 1990. 

Meanwhile, the footage taken during his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” concert tour offers just tiny glimpses at the present day life of a world renowned artist. The moments that are revealing are fleeting. For instance, while hosting his Apple Music radio show “Rocket Hour” he is taken aback when his script tells him to introduce the country performer Allison Ponthier as a “queer” artist. Furnish explains how that’s now an accepted term rather than one laced with hostility as John might read it. It’s a peek into a generational divide felt by an LGBTQ+ elder statesman, but that is never really interrogated. In fact, John never seems too keen to analyze his place in the gay pantheon.

Elsewhere in the new material, we see John talking on a video call with his two young sons, and rehearsing his collaboration with Dua Lipa. Yet you can’t help but feel there was so much that might have been more intriguing left on the cutting room floor. We never really see his interaction with his band, nor get a look at the physical toll touring might take on him. And, despite the fact that Furnish is behind the camera, their love story and family life is referenced only obliquely. 

The countdown to the final Dodger Stadium performance feels like something of a misdirect, because there is never really much tension that must be associated with that date. There’s an ambling looseness to what we see that feels out of sync with the pressure the film itself is putting on that date, and similarly feels incongruous with the emotional rollercoaster of John’s early life. It arrives almost with a sense of relief. Perhaps that’s the very point: John, now a sober family man, is much more zen than he ever was. And yet it also somehow feels like the pacing is off, like this big moment is just another day at the office for him, and all the chaos is simply relegated to the past.

The story of Elton John is well told, most recently in the musical biopic “Rocketman,” starring Taron Egerton. “Never Too Late” is never particularly revelatory for those who are familiar with John, but there is a coziness to hear him recount his experiences. You just wish it had dug deeper. With someone as close to him as Furnish getting a directing credit, there might have been a real chance to see the human side of John, the man he evolved into when he says he left the rockstar behind. 

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