Cleaning Up
Elton-John’s farewell trek has previously been named the highest-grossing tour of all time. Now in Europe, he extends the record by passing the $850 million mark, Billboard has revealed. Also while on tour, his earnings have exploded to $1.898 billion, making him the highest grossing solo artist of all time!
Our man has finished a run of O2 shows . . . until he returns once more at the end of May. Last Monday night at the arena in the-UK, Elton dedicated Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me to Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway and her husband, Derek Draper, who were in attendance, as were their kids. Derek has been suffering from long Covid, and Elton acknowledged the struggles they have gone through. Kate said the whole family cried, and that Elton met her spouse after the performance. Unfortunately, Derek has since returned to the hospital.
On Wednesday, Elton made an appearance via video. He told members of the U.S. Congress, aka The Hill, that ”we need to keep our foot on the accelerator” when it comes to fighting AIDS. So he hopes that the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) will be reauthorised.
Elton John testifies before Senate on ending HIV/AIDS worldwide #EltonJohn #HIV #AIDS pic.twitter.com/UvNQweRGMG
— NewsGPTai (@AnoopSihag20) April 19, 2023
In 2015, the Elton-John-AIDS-Foundation and PEPFAR launched a $10 million partnership to provide grants to organisations working to meet the HIV-related needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals.
When the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour comes to an end, Elton and his family plan to visit the Antarctic. They also hope to travel to India, and closer to home, David Furnish told the Mirror, Elton would like to take their sons to more Watford games, ”as long as they win.”
Before that, though, the alliance-for-lifetime-income has chances to win Elton John tickets. You can attempt to score tickets for the singer’s final O2 concert on 30 May, or his Accor Arena engagement in Paris, France, on 28 June. The deadline to enter the London portion of the contest is tomorrow; for Paris, it’s the 24th of May.
Another highly anticipated event is Glastonbury. In fact, Legolandwindsor has a new creation inspired by the forthcoming festival. While Elton is showcased, the scene has been described as also featuring ”festival-goers sliding in the mud.” This sounds like other events: Woodstock in 1969, or the following year across the pond, the Yorkshire Folk, Blues & Jazz Festival, where Elton handed out brandy to folks braving the wind and rain. . . One could imagine Elton’s reaction if guests left muddy prints in his home. He would probably rush to clean up.
In fact, Elton has said that he does very-well when it comes to Hoovering and polishing. On the other hand, he’s ”no good at washing and ironing.” We can’t help but be reminded of the line in Sad Songs (Say So Much) about ”ironing out the rough spots,” and the rather effective Sasson-Says-So-Much jeans commercial.
More recently–just this past Saturday–was Record Store Day. Among the participants was Yard-Act, with an almost unrecognisable cover of Tiny Dancer. This is the B-side to 100%-Endurance, which Elton recorded last year with them.
The 50th anniversary edition of Elton-John‘s Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player was also made available for RSD, comprised of original tracks and session demos.
As you know, Bernie Taupin, Elton’s songwriting partner (on Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player and many other albums), now has an exhibit at Iconic Images Piccadilly. It’s a collaboration with the late Terry O’Neill, and is based on a series of sixties photographs. Bernie told Channel4-News that Terry was a ”magnetic personality” who ”gravitated into their orbit” and vice versa. Bernie also said that he creates art more often than he pens lyrics. And he thinks it’s good that he and Elton are such different characters. Otherwise, their friendship probably wouldn’t have remained so strong.
He added that Elton ”is still the love of my life.”
