Irish Examiner view: Last steps on Yellow Brick Road for Elton

Farewell Elton

Elton John: Last night was his fifth appearance in Cork in a career that has contained 4,034 concerts.

It’s difficult to believe the sun will ever go down on Elton John and that last night’s concert at Páirc Uí Chaoimh will be the last time we see the evergreen rocketman on an outdoor stage in Ireland.

Whether that is true or not — and the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour has already stretched over three, pandemic-influenced, years — Elton has captivated audiences in the Republic since the first time he visited on the A Single Man tour in March 1979.

Last night was his fifth appearance in Cork in a career that has contained 4,034 concerts.

The same year, 1979, two months after he appeared in his first concert in Dublin, Elton John made a historic tour of what was then the Soviet Union, playing live shows in Moscow and Leningrad (now St Petersburg).

The Russians were familiar with the music of Elton John and, indeed, other iconic Western groups such as The Beatles because they had been listening in illegally to American Forces radio. Indeed, many young Soviets learned their English from the lyrics of pop songs.

At the same time that Elton John took to the stage at the Rossiya concert hall in Moscow, Vladimir Putin, then 27, was undergoing advanced training at the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB in the same city. It may have been a different world if Vlad had taken some time to go to the show. On the other hand, given that the set included ‘Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)’ and ‘Back In The USSR’, then perhaps he did. But drew the wrong conclusions.

Be that as it may, last night in Cork was an opportunity to say farewell to the greatest showman. We may never see his like again.