Call it a delayed farewell.
Elton John’s North Little Rock stop on his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour was originally scheduled for July 3, 2020. Of course, the first wave of the pandemic caused the trek to be abandoned.
And even though the omicron variant of the virus continues to spread, John is back on the road and brings his vast catalog of hits and his fabulous collection of sunglasses to Simmons Bank Arena on Saturday for an all-encompassing victory lap show. the quarry which, as of our Wednesday deadline, only a few platinum-level tickets remained.
John, born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on March 25, 1947, was a hugely popular musician for most of his 74 years. He’s the kind of legacy artist whose catalog appeals to classic rockers, Gen Xers who grew up in the 80s Top 40, fans of his ballads and those who love him as a gay icon and activist. .
[RELATED: Elton John’s Arkansas connections]
Just take a look at these tracks, all pretty much standards from the last 50+ years: “Your Song”, https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/jan/27/hello-yellow -brick-road /”Bennie and the Jets”,
“Crocodile Rock”, https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/jan/27/hello-yellow-brick-road/ “Daniel”, https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/jan /27/hello-yellow-brick-road/”Rocket Man,”https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/jan/27/hello-yellow-brick-road/”Sad Songs,”https:/ /www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/jan/27/hello-yellow-brick-road/”Tiny Dancer,”https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/jan/27/hello-yellow- brick-road/”The Bitch Is Back,”https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/jan/27/hello-yellow-brick-road/”Philadelphia Freedom,”https://www.arkansasonline. com/news/2022/jan/27/hello-yellow-brick-road/”Don’t let the sun go down on me,” https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/jan/27/hello – yellow-brick-road/”Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,”https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/jan/27/hello-yellow-brick-road/”Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.”
And that’s only scratching the surface. Seriously, it must be a chore to whittle down your setlists every night.
Elton John has sold over 300 million records worldwide. (Rocket Entertainment/Ben Gibson) If you like that stuff, his sales stats are staggering.
According to eltonjohn.com, he is “the most successful solo male in US chart history and the third most successful artist overall, behind only Madonna and the Beatles”.
He had 67 songs in the Hot 100 between 1970 and 2000, including nine that reached No. 1 and No. 27 in the Top 10 and sold over 300 million records worldwide.
Between 1972 and 1975 he had seven No. 1 albums. “Candle in the Wind 1997”, a tribute to Princess Diana and a revamp of the song that first appeared on the 1973 album “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” , has sold over 33 million copies and is the best-selling single in pop chart history. .
“Cold Heart (PNAU Remix)”, his 2021 single with Dua Lipa which appears on his album “Lockdown Sessions”, reached number two on the charts in the UK, making him the first musician to have a Top 10 track in six different decades.
He has won five Grammy Awards and two Oscars, the first with Tim Rice for ‘The Lion King’ in 1994 and another with longtime musical partner Bernie Taupin for the bio-pic’s ‘I’m Gonna Love Me Again’. 2019’s “Rocketman.”
And call him Sir Elton, because in 1998 he became the first openly gay musician to be knighted by Queen Elizabeth in recognition not only of his career in music but also of his charities in the fight against AIDS.
The current leg of the “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour kicked off on January 19 with a sold-out show at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. (Rocket Entertainment/Ben Gibson) Growing up, John was a precocious pianist, able to play “The Skater’s Waltz” by ear by the age of 3. At the age of 11 he received a scholarship as a junior exhibitor at the Royal Academy of Music.
Like many British musicians, he was in love with American blues and R&B. He formed his first band, Bluesology, in 1962 and played with it for five years. He worked as a session musician and teamed up with lyricist Taupin. It would become one of pop music’s most successful partnerships and lead to John’s greatest hits, with John building songs around Taupin’s lyrics.
But success did not come quickly. John’s 1969 debut album, “Empty Sky”, failed to find an audience. His self-titled second album also did not do well commercially; he released his third, “Tumbleweed Connection”, in 1970.
Somewhere along the line, the DJs started playing the ballad “Your Song”, the B-side to “Take Me to the Pilot”, a single from the second album. “Your Song” became John’s first hit; “Tumbleweed Connection” received positive reviews, reaching No. 5 in the US, and John’s career began its upward trajectory.
He had developed a boisterous stage presence behind his piano that would evolve into campy extravagance, rolling together Liberace, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Charles and his own streak of excess in a rock ‘n’ roll spectacle.
In 2018, when this farewell tour began, journalist Bill Wyman wrote about John’s enduring inscrutability, despite having been in the public eye most of his life. Wyman also marveled at John’s musicality. “He’s an incredible pianist; his oeuvre is a seemingly endless stream of quite complex and full-bodied playing, with cascading counter-melodies in almost every song.”
The current leg of the “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour kicked off on January 19 with a sold-out show at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. The tour is set to hit North American arenas through April before heading to Europe. John will return to the United States in July for a series of stadium shows, culminating in back-to-back concerts on November 19 and 20 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, a nod to his legendary 1975 show at the venue.
“Farewell Yellow Brick Road” by Elton John
- When: 8 p.m. Saturday
- Or: Simmons Bank Arena, 1 Simmons Bank Arena Drive, North Little Rock
- Admission: Varies if there are tickets left
- (501) 975-9000, simmonsbankarena.com
- (Arena no longer takes money for merchandise, concessions.)
