Elton John was born in the 1940s, like Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Joni Mitchell, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards – but somehow he’s not part of this golden generation: he doesn’t belong to the very top musicians’ elite. Elton John has released many good albums, but with “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” there is at most one album that is considered cultural heritage.
After all, on stage, as on the first evening of his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour in Berlin, it becomes obvious: the 76-year-old is the only musician who is an independent artist live. One whose concerts are built around him alone. Everyone from that golden generation could perform without their instrument because they are now more performers than instrumentalists, they would have or have many people in the background on stage who would double the boss’s instrument if necessary – but Elton John still dominates his instrument, at no time would he have to be relieved by a band. He is independent from the team. Of the old guard, only Billy Joel (born 1949) can demonstrate this on the piano, and Neil Young (1945) on the guitar. If one were to remove Elton John’s six-piece backing band – including John Nigel, who has been with him since 1969 – John could still complete a full-fledged concert – playing the keys is enough. Six people stand with him on stage, in the unorthodox combination of four rhythm instruments (drums, bass, two percussionists) and, just in the minority, guitar and keyboard – that’s a clear line-up. Melodically everything is headed for the Elton grand piano.
It starts with “Bennie and the Jets”. Elton John shows his own “You, especially you!” finger to the audience: Everyone should feel addressed. You are Bennie, he is Bennie, I am Bennie, we are Bennie. Then the recordings on the screens, the “visuals”, begin. And it will be difficult, unfortunately, until the end. Some of it looks very much like it was tailored from American educational material, such as the silhouettes of cowboys chasing chained convicts (“Have Mercy On The Criminal”). Others look so absurd that you can no longer look at Elton and the band, but instead stare at the screens in fascination and suffering: “Philadelphia Freedom” presents colorful recordings of aerobic dancers on leather seating cubes, as if from a Bennetton advertisement. In “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues” America then becomes Europe: lots of photos of tragic British couples, probably photos by Martin Parr, who so regrettably photographed English people who had been left behind in the seaside resort towns that they did not guarantee their approval for these photos have given. Of course, grandma and grandpa are pushing the blues sung by Elton, message understood, but: This is supposedly Elton John’s last concert tour. You just want to see him on screen, right? You want to see your life story – if there have to be screens.
Or does it speak for Elton John that he presents the tour, at least visually, not just as a memory lane revue, but as a (video) display for the bending of younger brand advertising dancers, older Blackpool Brits and generally the life that the multimillionaire does not can see more up close?
Of course, he celebrates himself – and rightly so. It shows on the screens. It just seems weird sometimes. One video depicts him as a monochrome sci-fi liquid metal T-1000 cyborg; in “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down Me” there are recordings from the “Rocket Man” movie, which he could have recorded earlier with the song “Rocket Man” – on the other hand, it was probably Elton John’s intention with “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” appealing to his fans not to give up on him precisely because the movie showed what a bad person he could be.
The author of these lines believes in his own observation: no musician who had a highly celebrated decade in the 1970s experienced an even greater one in the 1980s. Elton John struggled with the 1980s, but his greatest hits revue reveals some hard-hitting voids. “Nikita” is missing, as is his first UK number one hit, “Sacrifice”. The grandiose “Song for Guy” sounds like it’s from the eighties, but it’s from the seventies – of course it’s missing. Elton John is also very strict on everything from the 1990s onwards. His very best song, “The One”, is of course missing. Also the two Oscar songs, the one from The Lion King and the one from a few years ago. Elton John may be too far down his road to delve into pieces that have always annoyed him. Point Taken. But what Elton John will have noticed for years: The greatest enthusiasm of the audience does not always ignite the song for Marilyn, but the song that he wrote for himself and that comes from the unloved 1980s of all things: “I’m Still Standing”. . And based on the audience reactions, strictly speaking it shouldn’t be called “I’m Still Standing” but “Finally We’re All Standing Up” – it’s the only song of the evening where, as they say, ” no longer keeps anyone on their seats”.
The old showman. When Elton gets up to drink, his back is turned to the audience, the water cup is behind the grand piano. Nobody should see how the artist absorbs something. He mentions companions and rightly assumes that we know legends. Of course he mentions “Bernie”, the “congenial song partner”, without his last name.
During the encores, Elton John reliably presents himself as the “hardest working man in show business”, a title that others have occupied for themselves, but which only he himself portrays in outfits: the bathrobe. This time with Shogun-esque back decoration. Martial arts in mind. “Crocodile Rock” is butter ride music, of course, but it’s “Cold Heart” that might cause concern. The “Song for a New Age” – by far his most popular piece on Spotify. PNAU remix “Rocket Man” and “Sacrifice” (so the song is still there!), Dua Lipa sings a few lines about it as far as she can. This mashup is considered Elton John’s biggest hit since the 1997 release of “Candle in the Wind” in the Lady Di version, making it his biggest hit in 26 years.
On the “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour, “Cold Heart” comes off the tape, Elton John sits on his stool and conducts the audience, totally floored, resulting in dance music that he just can’t play along with, and at the production of which he was clearly not in charge of.
Playback show with Elton! It’s not his world. He even dedicates an announcement to “Cold Heart”: “I’m so glad that the song got so much attention”. One could almost think that the two songs after that, the last two songs of the evening, weren’t that important anymore. Are they important? They are “Your Song” and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”.