«I’ve had enough of applause for a million lives. Now, I have other things to do». Elton John has made his farewell to the public Friday night at the AccorHotels Arena of Paris. It’s better to talk of first farewells. There will be others. Touring his Farewell Yellow Brick Road will return to Paris for two dates, again, in 2020. Compelling logic, Elton John was so eager to stop what he signed up for a tour of 300 dates on two continents…
At 20 o’clock sharp and while all the world has not yet reached his seat, the kid darling of the british pop stage. Ah, the good manners of british! It gallops in the corridors of Bercy on the first piano notes of Bennie and the Jets. Elton John was clothed in her eternal garment of light: glasses XXL sequin, shirt, candy pink, and gold, suit jacket, flowery. Popular, but is it not living proof that the ridiculous, when it doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger?
» READ ALSO – farewell Tour XXL, legion of honor, the biopic… The twelve labours of Elton John
there is no phlegm English mind: from the end of the first song, Elton John will address in French, if you please, to the public: «Thank you for buying the ticket» (sic). The Brit has taken lessons at Cannes in may, where he came to present the film, which traces his life, Rocketman . He has the smile of the good days. Charmer, it points people in the audience with a knowing glance, calls for applause. Thirty-seven Bercy at the counter, but it is there, as on the first evening. His voice, immediately, impressed. What a chest! At the time of the vocoder, Elton John, him, époumone a cappella in front of 18.000 people in a trance. Blown.
images broadcast on the giant screen are chosen with care. One would expect no less of this collector’s obsessive-compulsive, who keeps them in his villa of Los Angeles over 7 000 photographs of the greatest photographers. Those, naturalists, Martin Parr parade in the background of That’s Why They Called It the Blues. to Be a bunch of bidochons English, rougeauds, identified, fed beer and jelly. Hilarious illustration of the «blues» of the middle class English, which has produced Elton John, and who, in majority, has voted in favour of the Brexit.
Beyoncé can get dressed again!
The sides of the «Rocketman» on stage, a joyous troop of musicians. Not really the partridges of the year, the majority of them accompanied by Elton John in the past half-century. Benefit of age, they have played with the greats, the Stones to Pink Floyd. The great percussionist Ray Cooper, who has the air of Walter White with his black hat on his skull bare, multiply the antics. It’s hard to believe that it will celebrate its 77-year-old this year. The hearing, hilarious, cash without flinching his drum solo of 5 minutes. It was necessary to dare.
Suddenly, the lightning strikes on Bercy. More a noise. A candelabra appears on the screen and the piano of Elton John is set on fire. It is Funeral for a Friend. At the end of Burn Down the Mission, we made the kick of farewell. He stops, he is tired. Wants to devote himself to his family, to his two sons. The opportunity to reiterate what he sees as the great achievement of his life, her commitment to the aids patients in Africa. One has the impression to attend the dress rehearsal of his speech at the Elysée palace Friday night, when Emmanuel Macron will give its legion of honor. Detail notable, Elton John talks about himself in the third person. As for distancing this «Elton» that it becomes as soon as the music starts, a creature almost supernatural output of the imagination of Reginald Dwight, a small red-haired complexed who tamed the notes as other letters of the alphabet.
Elton John decorated by Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée palace – Watch on Figaro Live
Rocketman, Candle in the Wind , Still Standing, Your Song, … The tubes are linked together for almost three hours. Beyoncé can get dressed again! Elton John has the good taste to spare us some of his productions during the 1980s, preferring nuggets seventies signed Bernie Taupin. The room sings in chorus the refrain of Crocodile Rock originally played on an organ Farfisa which Elton John had wanted it to «sound the shittiest possible».
For the reminder, the singer appears in a long kimono of blue silk. It is soon time to go to bed. Two songs, and to bed. After a final grand finale to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road , he left the scene in a forklift transparent. The lights come back on. In the speakers? Always and even Elton John. Some spectators continue to dance on Don t Go Breaking My Heart …
