After five years and 330 Farewell Yellow Brick Road concerts across the globe, Elton John wrapped up his career as a touring artist Saturday night with an emotional show at the Tele2 Arena in Stockholm, Sweden. Fan-shot video of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” captured the last song of the evening.
“I’ve had the most wonderful career, beyond belief,” he told the crowd before launching into the song. “Fifty years of pure joy playing music. How lucky am I? But I wouldn’t be sitting here and talking to you if it wasn’t for you. You bought the singles, the CDs, the albums, the cassettes…More importantly, you bought the tickets to the shows. You know how much I love to play live. It’s been my lifeblood to play for you guys. You’ve been absolutely magnificent.”
John announced the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in January 2018 at a press conference moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “That doesn’t mean I won’t still be creative,” he said. “But I won’t travel anymore … I don’t want to go out with a whimper. I want to go out with a bang … It’ll be the most produced, fantastic show I’ve ever done.”
The tour began September 8, 2018 in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The 24-song set was packed with hits like “Tiny Dancer,” “Candle In The Wind,” and “Crocodile Rock,” though he did squeeze in some deep cuts, including “Indian Sunset,” “Burn Down The Mission,” and “All The Girls Love Alice.” The pandemic forced him off the road in March 2020, but the tour started up again in January 2022 and continued at a relentless pace until the Stockholm finale.
At the Stockholm show, he told the crowd exactly why he decided to get off the road. “I want to appreciate my family, my sons, my husband, everything,” he said. “I’ve earned, it. And I don’t regret it tonight. I want to thank the band, the crew, everybody. I will miss you guys so much, but I’ll see you much sooner than you think. I love you guys!”
John may never tour again, but he told Rolling Stone in 2020 that he’s open to the possibility of a residency devoted to his lesser-known songs. “It [would be] similar to what Kate Bush did at the Hammersmith Apollo [in 2014],” he said. “She came on and played for three weeks to 4,000 people a night. If I do that, I don’t want to sing ‘Crocodile Rock’ again and I don’t really want to sing ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’ again. They are wonderful songs. They have done me very well. But there are other songs like ‘Original Sin’ and ‘American Triangle’ that I want to sing.”
Any residency like that is probably years off. Elton just sang “Crocodile Rock” and “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” 330 times each. The man deserves a long, long break.