Elton John Honors Bowie, Duets With Lovato, Mendes & Stump at Record Release Show
Elton John may have recruited a series of singers of a fraction of his age – Demi Lovato, Vine star Shawn Mendes, and Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump – for a special Jan. 13 show at Los Angeles’s intimate Wiltern venue previewing Wonderful Crazy Night, his upbeat 32nd album (and first album since 2006’s The Captain & The Kid to feature the Elton John Band), out Feb. 5. But it was a tribute to his ‘70s contemporary David Bowie that was of course the highlight of the evening.
Onstage, Sir Elton explained that if it hadn’t been for Bowie, he would have never connected with his original producer and arranger, Gus Dudgeon and Paul Buckmaster, whom he discovered via Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” John proclaimed, “I have David Bowie to thank for that,” before ripping into an epic, five-minute-plus piano instrumental interpolation of “Space Oddity” that magnificently segued into his own famous interstellar ballad, “Rocket Man.”
John also celebrated younger modern-day artists Wednesday night, with a surprising assortment of odd-couple duet partners: Mendes on “Tiny Dancer,” Lovato filling the Kiki Dee role on “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” and Stump (with whom John previously collaborated on Fall Out Boy’s 2013 hit “Save Rock and Roll”) on “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting.” These duets did not work perfectly – 17-year-old Mendes seemed a bit out of his depth, Lovato was strident in parts, and the “Saturday” audio mix was muddled – but the joy of seeing John and his young, enthusiastic admirers in such a celebratory mood was contagious nonetheless. “If I were 50 years younger… I’d still be one year older than [Mendes],” John joked at one point.
John explained that Wonderful Crazy Night is a “joyous record, reflecting the mood I’m in personally… a rock ‘n’ roll record like rock ‘n’ roll used to be” – a contrast to his previous “very introspective” album, 2013’s The Diving Board with T-Bone Burnett. John performed several new Wonderful cuts – “A Good Heart,” “In the Name of You,” “Blue Wonderful,” “Looking Up,” and the title track – but unsurprisingly, the wildest audience responses came when he sang his classics, with and without special guests.
(photo: Stereogum)
Elton John’s full Wiltern setlist was:
Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
Bennie and the Jets
I’m Still Standing
Levon
A Good Heart
In the Name of You
Tiny Dancer (with Shawn Mendes)
Philadelphia Freedom
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Space Oddity/Rocket Man
Wonderful Crazy Night
Blue Wonderful
Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (with Demi Lovato)
I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues
Sad Songs (Say So Much)
Burn Down the Mission
Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me
The Bitch Is Back
Looking Up
Your Sister Can’t Twist (But She Can Rock ‘n Roll)
Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting (with Patrick Stump)
Your Song
