The Rocketman, 76, is gearing up for his record-breaking farewell shows by walking six miles in his pool — sideways
Well, he did say it was gonna be a long, long time. Nearly five years after announcing his final tour, Sir Elton John has at last brought his farewell show home. This is it: following a stadium jaunt last summer, this is the last time we will get to see the star and his specs live.
The Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour began its last leg in Liverpool on Thursday and winds through nine dates in London to Glastonbury: his curtain call in the UK. Goodbye, Elton John.
Sales from tickets and merchandise could drum up a billion dollars for the star, who has already broken the record for the highest-grossing tour of all time. In January, after his Antipodean dates, it was reported that he made $817.9 million from 278 shows.
John turned 76 yesterday and has said he wants to bow out to spend more time with his husband David Furnish, the manager and creative director of the tour, and their sons Zachary, 12, and Elijah, 10. Had it not been for the pandemic, he would have done so sooner.
On this tour, he will spend more than 900 hours at the piano. After his two Liverpool gigs this week, he has 49 to come, finishing in Sweden in early July, which will take the total on this tour to 329.
How does he do it? These are figures that would exhaust many younger artists, but John is still standing. Or at least standing up from the piano when he gets excited belting out Bennie and the Jets.
The five-star reviews praise a showman on top form, but it has not been plain sailing for the man who met his co-songwriter and lyricist, Bernie Taupin, 56 years ago. This tour has put the spotlight on a string of ailments, normal for a man his age, but experienced very much in the public eye.
John’s love for music has made him part nostalgia act, part pop pioneer
CAMERON SMITH/GETTY IMAGES
In February 2020 — this really has been a long tour — John had to cut short a gig in Auckland, in New Zealand, when his voice packed in as a result of pneumonia. He was back a week later, only for Covid to strike.
When the pandemic was over and he returned to the stage in 2021, John was forced to postpone a run of gigs after a hip replacement. “I’m in pain most of the time,” he said in November 2021. “I can’t move sideways. The decision had to be made [to postpone] because I don’t want to go on stage and give less than 100 per cent.”
Now he has a routine. “I get up, have breakfast and go for a walk in the pool,” he said. “At my age that is the best thing I can do — I walk sideways and do about six miles a week.” There are also simple tweaks: things that can help a septuagenarian keep on globetrotting, playing for two hours a night. This tour has no support act and a 7:30pm start. He’s finished before BBC News at Ten, a bonus for both artist and fans.
Still, rumours about his health will not go away. Last summer the singer was photographed being pushed in a wheelchair. He debunked concern on Instagram. “The tabloids ran a silly story about me ‘looking frail,’” John said. “The true story is I’m in top health and playing and singing at my very best . . . I’m loving every minute of it.”
And so are the fans. It is getting emotional as the end draws near. “Fantastic evening,” tweeted a punter after the first Liverpool gig. “That’s 34 concerts for me. One more to go.” Others enthused: “Spectacular”; “Brilliant”; “The best night”.
The show is unchanged since its first night in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 2018. (Night two was in Philadelphia, the inspiration for his 1975 hit Philadelphia Freedom.)
The arena gig designers Stufish Entertainment Architects, the brains behind shows for the Rolling Stones and Lady Gaga, began work on the tour in 2015.
The studio’s chief executive, Ray Winkler, first worked with John in 1999 and this time collaborated closely with Furnish to create something baroque, opulent and very John. The original brief was simply that it was going to be a long tour — be imaginative. The singer trusts people he knows well and has worked with before.
Some believe the whole set looks like a drooping piano. Look out for actual yellow bricks framing a giant screen.
“The metaphor,” Winkler said, “is that he is walking down that yellow brick road towards his retirement and the sunset of his life.”
John is centre stage at his grand piano as videos play behind him. Some are curated for particular songs: pictures of humdrum British life, by the photographer Martin Parr, are the backdrop for I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues. Sometimes he performs in front of live footage.
“David and Elton went over [what we show on video together],” Winkler said. “John Lennon and Elton together, or with [the tennis player] Billie Jean King, or The Lion King. These were personal items to Elton.”
John is centre stage at his grand piano as videos play behind him
PETER BYRNE/PA
Needless to say, John wears clothes that you will absolutely not find on your local high street. His wardrobe for the past five years of on-and-off touring has included a couple of dozen one-off Gucci outfits. Each night he picks three different costumes for the show.
“Look, I’m not Mick Jagger,” John told The New York Times just before embarking on his mammoth finale, “tearing from one end of the stage to the other. I’m always bloody stuck at the piano, aren’t I? Clothes have always had to be part of the show that I put on. They made me memorable.”
Well, let’s not be too humble; the songs are good too.
John’s love for music has guided him to a unique place where he is part nostalgia act, part pop pioneer.
Most of his peers show no interest in modern music, but John, via his Rocket Hour radio show on Apple Music 1, has long given new acts a boost.
The cult acts Rina Sawayama and Let’s Eat Grandma supported him at Hyde Park in London. Sam Fender, Wet Leg, FLO, Haim, Yard Act, Nova Twins and Lorde have all had his backing in the past couple of years.
At his gigs, though, it is all about him with a back catalogue of such expanse that the 24-song setlist inevitably leaves out personal favourites.
For me, that’s This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore from his superb comeback album Songs From The West Coast (2001). It has not been played on stage since 2004, so we can assume that will never be heard again.
Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, off his Honky Château studio album of 1972 and perhaps his best song, is tinkled out only sporadically. It is thought of as a deep cut, to be swapped out with, say, Levon or Have Mercy On The Criminal from 1973. Most of the show is wall-to-wall hits on their final parade.
During Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me, John pays tribute to the recently departed, such as the Queen. His most played hit, Your Song, is included every night. By the time the tour is over he will have played it 2,404 times during his career — 7,401 minutes of Your Song live.
His voice, unsurprisingly, has changed. Before a gig, Sir Paul McCartney gets a bowl of hot water and puts a towel over his head to clear his larynx through steam. Then he gargles salt water.
Sir Rod Stewart swims to improve breath control and lung capacity. John’s routine is more secretive, but, in 1987 he had surgery to take out nodules on his vocal cords, which meant he could no longer sing in an upper register. That means old songs like Someone Saved My Life Tonight come with a bluesier tone but his voice has not gone, just changed.
Soon it will rest, and fans will have to be happy with old albums, videos and the excellent, warts’n’all biopic, Rocketman.
Source: The Times
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