MAt the age of 75, life really doesn’t start anymore. The little niggles are more likely to report, the joints groan, the hips want to be repaired. Sir Elton John is no exception, having had hip surgery last fall. However, that was no reason for the world star to end his enormous undertaking, namely to travel around the world with a farewell tour. Even the corona pandemic was at best a delay in this feat of strength, which means no fewer than 300 concerts.
Performance number 241 of the Farewell Yellow Brick Road World Tour, which is now almost four years long, took the singer and pianist to Frankfurt for the last time on Friday evening, where Elton John in the Deutsche Bank Park, which was well filled with around 35,000 visitors, showed in a quite impressive way that 75 is actually the new 66, the age at which, according to another singer and pianist, is far from over.
On this evening, all you really need is a grand piano and a chord to get the pulse of both the old circus horse Elton John and the audience, who have been weaned from any major concerts for more than two years, to speed up. Once again it’s “Bennie and the Jets”, one of the hits from Elton John’s hit album “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, released in 1973, which opens the show on a best-of program that makes good use of those songs which the world star recorded in the seventies, at the time when his music was really relevant and he wrote great pop songs in ingenious collaboration with the lyricist Bernie Taupin, which were also appreciated by an audience that was otherwise alienated or rejected rock music faced.
Elton John’s music hasn’t lost this amazing ability to reach consensus to this day, which can also be observed in the motley crowd in the Frankfurt stadium, which includes three generations and a wide variety of characters from old rockers to influencer couples. Some might have discovered or rediscovered the star through Dexter Fletcher’s 2019 biopic “Rocketman”, who in turn can now, with a clear conscience, strike up ancient pearls such as the “Border Song” from 1970, dedicated to Aretha Franklin, because at least the moviegoers recognizable, similar to Elton John’s feat “Tiny Dancer” from 1971, whose class quite a few listeners only learned to appreciate when it was used in the film “Almost Famous”.
The sound is not quite as famous in the first half hour of the concert, as Elton John and his six fabulous accompanying musicians roar with immense volume into the wide circle, which only becomes apparent with songs like “Rocket Man” and “Someone Saved My Life Tonight”, which Elton John calls one of his favorite songs, gradually improves and makes the instruments sound more distinguishable. That’s a win for the classic “Levon” at the latest. The song ends in a longer jam in which not only Elton John shows that he still masters the boogie, but also excites the exquisite percussionist Ray Cooper and the great guitarist Davey Johnstone .
Following this rocking intermezzo with the mega tearjerker “Candle In The Wind” performed solo, after a brief shock, clearly shows the range of emotions Reginald Kenneth Dwight knows how to cover with his songs and the power still in his voice plugged. It may sound brittle here and there, but it gets stronger and stronger over the course of the two and a half hour concert, as if it wanted to underline the statement “I’m Still Standing” with all its might.
Yes, he’s still in good shape at 75, getting up from a stool after almost every song to thank him for the frenetic applause, flouting the lulling ballads and boldly playing “Crocodile Rock” and “Saturday Night’s” instead Alright For Fighting”, only to start the farewell after all. 52 years after his first appearance in Frankfurt, at that time in the Centennial Hall, he sings “Your Song” for the last time on the Main and this time his “goodbye” is no longer just for the Yellow Brick Road.
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