Elton John’s debut at Glastonbury is also meant to be his last ever performance in the UK – though it’s by far not the first time he has sworn he’s retiring only to make a subsequent return. True to form, when the 76-year-old performer addresses the crowd at the Pyramid stage – surely one of the busiest ever – it is with subtle caveats. “I never thought I’d play Glastonbury and here I am,” he says. “It’s a very special and emotional night for me as it may be my last ever show in England, so I better play well and entertain you as you’ve been standing there so long.”
This, then, isn’t really one for him, but one for us. Unlike other legends of British pop who have played this slot – Macca last year, say – he’s stripped out all the deep cuts to play wall-to-wall hits, deviating from the setlist of his ongoing Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour. The vast majority of this show dwells in the 70s, which some may see as an admission of defeat for an artist who is still releasing records, not to mention famously being a new music fan. But these are timeless songs that tell John’s complex story, refracting the pleasures and pains he has survived to become a living legend.
And John is in utterly vital form, clad in a shiny gold suit and black-rimmed, orange-lensed glasses. In recent years, there have been some concerns about his health and his ability to keep performing at this level. But although he looks a little stiff when he occasionally rises from his piano stool, his energy is gleefully pugnacious, his piano playing vigorous and thrilling, his face occasionally flashing with an expression that suggests: “’Ave it!” He jabs at the crowd like a real showman – even flexing his muscles on Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting – and looks rightfully pleased with himself when the tens of thousands of people here lose it. His crack, tour-honed band somehow manage to be deep and funky yet sound utterly weightless, letting these killer songs float among the Pyramid stage flags.
The set starts with a run of seemingly self-referential hits about what it means to be such a master. Backed by a big firework display, he opens with the rallying piano of Pinball Wizard, with its Led Zeppelin-indebted guitar solo. Then there’s the unapologetic self-celebration of The Bitch is Back, on which he lets out a number of vivid vocal trills, and a magnificently funky, loose Bennie and the Jets. The latter is a dreamy reverie, one of those rare perfect songs about the joy of hearing a perfect song; it feels almost cosmic to hear it live. Other than Daniel, from 1973’s Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player, which the crowd seem to know less well, the hit rate never drops: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is wistful and sees the crowd sing the chorus for John; Philadelphia Freedom charges forward. He explains that the latter was inspired by Philadelphia International Records, which prompted him to record his next song, Are You Ready for Love, with label producer Thom Bell in 1979. It did nothing at the time, he says, until a 2003 remix championed by Fatboy Slim sent it to No 1.
It’s indicative of the mentality John brings to tonight’s set, drawing the dots between past and present; spending as much time celebrating the next generation as revelling in his own career. For Are You Ready for Love, he brings out Jacob Lusk of Gabriels as his guest, in top-to-toe hot pink, and he looks like he’s having the time of his life.
All weekend, Glastonbury has been abuzz with rumours that Britney Spears would perform her version of Tiny Dancer with John. People around me gasp when he introduces that song and mentions that he met his next guest in Las Vegas – John and Spears had their respective residencies there at the same time – but instead, he brings on the Killers’ Brandon Flowers, dressed in red and with searingly white politician teeth, followed next by Rina Sawayama for a playful Don’t Go Breaking My Heart. (He sounds disappointed that Dua Lipa isn’t there to do their 2021 hit Cold Heart, however, and her pre-recorded vocals sound limp in the otherwise febrile atmosphere.)
Most astonishingly, he cedes a spot in his setlist for US songwriter Stephen Sanchez to perform his TikTok-beloved hit Until I Found You. “What good is a hero to anyone if they’re not kind and you are my hero because you are kind,” Sanchez tells John afterwards. It sets the tone for a run of gorgeous, devotional love songs. Dusk sets in as John plays a stunning rendition of Your Song, which draws the hugest singalong of the whole set – probably the whole festival – with John in endearingly conversational form on one of the most famous choruses of all time. His voice brims with feeling on Candle in the Wind.
The crescendo, however, is punchy and defiant: a rollicking Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting is a real showcase for the band; I’m Still Standing rattles along. Then the closing one-two may allude to John’s complicated feelings about whether this really is his last ever UK performance. “Losing everything is like the sun going down on me,” he sings on Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me; Rocket Man is riddled with anxiety about purpose and disconnection. He needn’t worry. Tonight’s miraculous set prompts an uncomplicated display of love for a performer who has admitted to his struggles to show it to himself. It’s rock history in the making, but it also doesn’t feel like the end: straddling eras and with pop standards to bear, Elton John feels eternal.
