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Elton John rocks Dodger Stadium in first of 3 farewell shows

There’s a lot of history for Elton John at Dodger Stadium, the singer-songwriter noted Thursday night in Los Angeles during first of what he says will be his final three shows ever in North America.

It was here in October 1975, of course, that Elton played two legendary concerts, dazzling a star-studded crowd as he pounded the piano, singing hit after hit, dressed in a Bob Mackie-designed silver-and-blue-beaded Dodgers uniform, an iconic look replicated many fans at this show.

“This has been a magical place for me,” he told the crowd at the close of “Philadelphia Freedom,” the second song of the night. “It’s part of my history, and I’m glad we’re ending this tour of America in this magical stadium.”

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Elton John performs at Dodger Stadium Thursday, November 17, 2022. The performance was the first of three at Dodger Stadium he is performing on his last stop in North America for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

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In a way, the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour, which first played Los Angeles in 2019, is Elton’s magical history tour. One last chance for fans to see him play songs that have been the soundtrack to their lives for more than 50 years. One last chance for Elton to see the fans who’ve supported him and been such a big part of his, too.

“I just hope I can make you happy,” he continued. “And give you a great show tonight.”

That is exactly what he and his excellent band delivered in a performance that spread 23 songs across two-and-a-half crowd-pleasing hours.

The percussive chords that kick off “Bennie and the Jets,” a chart-topping hit in 1974, opened the show a little after 8 p.m. as a good number of fans still were making their way into the stadium. Elton perched at the piano, dressed in a red-blue-and-silver bedazzled tuxedo with tails and rhinestone-encrusted plum-colored sunglasses.

At its close he stood, thrusting his arms in the air as the crowd cheered, raising them again and again to keep the applause rolling down from the upper levels of the stadium and across the baseball field to the stage.

Early highlights included “Border Song,” dedicated to the late Aretha Franklin, who covered the tune when he and lyricist Bernie Taupin were still little-known. It was followed by “Tiny Dancer,” during which you could hear a surge of cheers as Elton sang the line about the “L.A. lady, seamstress for the band.”

It’s impossible for Elton to play every hit single a fan might want to hear – “Honky Cat” and “Daniel” weren’t in the set on Thursday – which makes finding room for an album track next to impossible. “Have Mercy on the Criminal,” a song from 1973’s “Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player,” is the one semi-rarity in the set this year. While it clearly wasn’t as familiar to the crowd, it rocked hard with Elton and his longtime guitarist Davey Johnstone swapping solos throughout.

“Rocket Man” appeared in the extended version he’s performed for years, its second half a lovely instrumental outro that gave room for Elton’s piano work to shine. “Levon” opened with piano and voice before the band joined in to rock it soulfully to the finish. (Drummer Nigel Olsson, who was with Elton since the beginning in 1970, and percussionist Ray Cooper, who’s been a regular player since 1973, both featured in this one.)

“Candle In The Wind,” Elton’s ode to Marilyn Monroe, closed out the first half of the show, vintage-style videos of a Marilyn lookalike on the video screens, after which he slipped off stage for a few minutes to change his outfit – jacket, sunglasses, and shoes.

The second half opened with the mini-suite of “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding,” the first half of it a moody orchestral storm, the second a rocking romp.

Elton seemed a little creaky at times moving about the stage – he’d injured his hip in a fall last year, though reportedly that’s behind him – but his voice at 75 sounded remarkably strong. Yes, he’s lowered some of the parts on songs such as “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word,” where percussionist John Mahon picked up the high parts.

But on songs such as “Burn Down The Mission” or “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me,” which was dedicated to four longtime members of his bands who are no longer alive, sounded rich and full as he sang.

While the middle of the set delivered some of the slower moods of his music, the final run of songs turned up the energy with tunes such as “The Bitch Is Back,” “Crocodile Rock,” and “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting,” which closed the main set.

The encore finally delivered the throwback look to a version of that 1975 look fans had surely hoped for: Elton in a silver-and-blue-sequined Dodgers dress gown and baseball hat with white oval sunglasses similar to those he’d worn here 47 years and a couple of weeks ago.

He opened singing “Cold Heart,” the 2021 single he recorded with Dua Lipa and Pnau, which includes snippets of “Rocket Man” and a handful of other past Elton tunes, and gave him a No. 1 hit in the United Kingdom and a Top 10 single in the United States. (Lipa will perform at the third and final Dodger Stadium show on Sunday along with Kiki Dee, his collaborator on 1976’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, and Brandi Carlile. Sunday’s concert will then air on Disney+.)

“Your Song,” perhaps Elton’s most gorgeous ballad, and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” one of his most-beloved songs, closed out the encore and sent fans off into the night. It was an earlier song, though, “I’m Still Standing,” that stuck in mind in the hour it took to escape the Dodger Stadium parking lot.

Written by Taupin about an ex-girlfriend, it’s shifted over time to feel more about Elton to many. He was still drinking and drugging when he recorded it in the mid-’80s – the boys in Duran Duran have a story about downing martinis with Elton during the video shoot – but he’s been clean and sober for decades now, happily married, raising two sons with his husband.

The video screens showed a montage of clips and photos from throughout his career, from childhood to the present, from a snippet of the 1975 Dodger Stadium shows to footage of Taron Egerton as Elton in the 2019 biopic “Rocketman.”

At 75, with no plans to tour after the final overseas dates of Farewell Yellow Brick Road are performed, Elton John is still standing, in a place in life filled with love and happiness, and what more could he want?

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