As his Rocketman biopic is keen to demonstrate, Elton John’s life has been defined by excess – too much drink, too much coke, too much love – so it’s appropriate that his final tour is, in a bit of millennial slang that he would surely approve of, extra: Farewell Yellow Brick Road is three years long, with about 300 dates. Before retiring to spend more time with his young sons, his last ever show will be at London’s O2 Arena on 16 December 2020, finishing a 19-date final leg in the UK and Ireland. This then is a little taster, as he pops into Cardiff, Dublin and, here, Sussex’s county cricket ground.
This is a man for whom a three-minute pop song won’t do if it could be four, or six, or an 11-minute suite about the devastation of a breakup, as the proggy Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding is here tonight. He plays for nearly three hours, energy constantly high, finishing almost every song by getting off his piano stool and gesturing “Come on!” at the audience like a Watford striker who just delivered a 30-yard screamer. There are three outfits, variously featuring glittery cats, a Gucci brooch so large that it could crown a child monarch, and rose-tinted, heart-shaped spectacles. The bad cold that saw him cancel a Verona date a fortnight ago has clearly been banished.
There are notes he can no longer reach, cold or not: that magical “magaziiine” in Bennie and the Jets, or the chorus of Tiny Dancer, which is taken by percussionist John Mahon with Elton harmonising. The tradeoff is that his deeper register has taken on rich, worn colours that don’t come across in the earlier recordings.
Introducing Border Song, he says he was flattered whenever anyone covered his songs in those early days – “It could have been the Chipmunks or Ken Dodd, I didn’t care” – but this one was taken on by Aretha Franklin, and there’s something of her to his delivery at times: a sensuality mixed with gospel fervour, that comes across most strongly in a blistering version of Levon. Beginning respectfully enough, it builds into quarter of an hour of wild piano and guitar soloing, bringing in bursts of Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting and the Beatles’ Day Tripper. Elton frequently lifts a finger aloft as another hand pounds away, like a preacher giving you the alternative to the flames below. There’s also a little of Jerry Lee Lewis in the emphatic slams of the piano lid that round off the barnstormers in his set.
He calls his band the best he’s ever worked with, and they are indeed a powerhouse outfit. John Jorgensen gets a string of kitsch guitars – twin-necked, blue glitter, one with the cover of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road painted on it – to unite rock’n’roll energy with beautiful details, such as the electric acoustic solo that closes out Rocket Man. Seventy-year-old drummer Nigel Olsson, who looks as if he could be the cricket club’s treasurer, is spry and metronomic. Almost stealing the show though is percussionist Ray Cooper, who shakes his tambourine as if summoning sexy wood sprites in a fruity Cirque de Soleil show. His contributions on Indian Sunset are pure theatre, bringing its rambling tale of Native American bloodshed – they don’t write them like that any more, and perhaps for a reason – to life with huge martial drums.
There are big-screen visuals throughout, and while Rocket Man’s look like a broadband advert, most are very good: drag-queen catfights for The Bitch is Back, neo-Soul Train dancing for Philadelphia Freedom. There’s a gallery of inspirations for Border Song: Pussy Riot, Peter Tatchell, Princess Diana. I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues is paired with Martin Parr seaside shots, ending on a union jack mug – a moment of patriotism that is repeated later, with Elton having unexpectedly modulated his stance on Brexit. In Verona he was castigating “stupid, imperialist English idiots” who voted us out; he now says “we voted to go out, so we must go out”, and scotches talk of a second referendum: “We need to heal … to talk to each other”. The notorious “bitch” of old has softened, with Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me movingly dedicated to “the Dwights”: his half brothers and their families.
Perhaps it’s a result of the stocktaking that happened for his forthcoming memoir, and of course Rocketman. The film’s star, Taron Egerton, is brought out to duet on Your Song, and the eerie sight of young and old Eltons shows just how far he has come: a man who took American forms – rock’n’roll, blues, gospel – and gave them an eccentric English theatre, resulting in something that is still unmatched. He has earned heart, brains and courage in spades, but it still feels too soon for the end of this yellow brick road.