Glorious: Elton John’s farewell tour, at the O2 Arena, reviewed

Elton John has now been retiring for nearly five years. The Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour began in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in September 2018. Why there? Because it’s a hop and a skip from the small town of Lititz in Amish country, where scores of the big arena shows are built – it’s the real rock’n’roll capital of the world. Since then, with breaks for Covid and other health worries, he has played roughly 300 shows, grossing north of $800 million as of January this year – this is the most commercially successful tour ever.

Retirement, or the threat of retirement, has always been a canny career move: Frank Sinatra played more than 1,000 concerts and recorded ‘Theme From New York, New York’ after he quit the business in 1971. For more than 40 years the Rolling Stones have attracted concert-goers keen not to miss their last chance to see them. They’ve now had more chances than a wicketkeeper standing up to Muttiah Muralitharan. It’s certainly one reason why I finally turned out for Elton – another tick on the ‘legendary artists wot I have seen list’.

For Elton, this was the ninth of ten shows at the O2, with its seating maximised to pack ’em in, and it followed two big outdoor London shows last summer, which brought in 100,000 punters between them. Given those numbers, this is not a show that messes about with new songs or runs of deep cuts. You want hits? You’ve got ’em – hit after hit after hit after hit, songs that have insinuated themselves into the consciousness in a way that only very few artists have managed. I’ve never shelled out for an Elton record, but when he played ‘Rocket Man’ there were, inexplicably, tears welling in my eyes – nostalgia for a time I don’t remember, for events I never participated in, for a world that was not mine.