Elton John has officially completed his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” world tour in Stockholm, after 333 shows and nearly five years.
Performing at the Tele2 Arena in town on Saturday night (8 July), John’s final song of the night – and thus the entire tour – was the tour’s semi-title track, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”. Before performing the song, Sir Elton gave a final speech to the 45,000-strong audience to thank them for their support throughout his career.
John said (trans Rolling Stone). “Fifty years of pure joy in playing music… How lucky am I? I wouldn’t sit here… It wasn’t for you. I’ve bought singles, CDs, albums, cassettes… [and] And most importantly, you bought tickets to the performances. You know how much I love playing live. It has been my lifeline to play for you guys. You were absolutely amazing.”
Watch the full speech and performance of the final song below:
Originally released in 1973, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” served as the second single and lead single from John’s seventh studio album. The song reached the top ten on the UK Singles Chart, the US, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and South Africa.
for every setlist.fmJohn has performed the song live about 1,475 times over the past 50 years. It has served as the setting closer for nearly every performance on the ‘Farewell Yellow Brick Road’ tour, which kicked off in September 2018 at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The tour continued across North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand until March 2020, after which the tour was postponed for about two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a hip injury that required John to undergo surgery in order to recover from.
The tour resumed in January 2022 at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, and would see John return to the road continuously for the next 18 months. His latest UK show was held as the headliner of Glastonbury Gallery, where he was joined by guests such as Brandon Flowers and Rina Sawayama. In May 2023, the tour was officially recognized as the highest-grossing world tour of all time.
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