Elton John leaves an indelible mark on rock in his dazzling Rio return
Elton John leaves an indelible mark on rock in his dazzling Rio return
Mark BeaumontTue, September 8, 2026 at 7:21 AM UTC
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Elton made his grand public return in Rio de Janeiro wearing a banana-yellow suit - Buda Mendes/Getty
A pair of gigantic video chandeliers illuminated Sir Elton John at a grand piano, and the storm clouds of opener Funeral For a Friend began raining psychedelic specs for Bennie and the Jets. Clearly, his first major show in three years was going to be a night of dazzling colour.
When Elton retired from touring at the end of his five-year Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in 2023 – the third highest-grossing tour of all time – he craftily left open the option to perform one-off shows or residencies instead. Since then he’s kept busy playing private parties, industry events and charity shows, and there was no more fittingly fabulous place for his grand public return than Rock In Rio. A glittering neon citadel on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, it’s easily the most spectacular global festival event in any non-Glastonbury year. There are firework displays to outgun the Chinese New Year, favela stages bursting with samba rave acts, Vegas-level light shows and a main stage set within a huge, site-wide video screen. Bright, brazen and exotically overdressed, it’s the Elton’s wedding of festivals.
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Elton sang Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me at one of countless high points - Buda Mendes/Getty
Even in such maximalist environs, though, Elton himself couldn’t be upstaged. Making full use of the vast screen, he upped the game for festival visual presentation. Grandiose piano ballad The One took place in a virtual Roman palace. Dancers in bold primary colours cavorted a hundred feet high through Philadelphia Freedom. The downcast LA characters embodying Tiny Dancer, a songwriting masterclass of restraint and release, were rendered in vibrant reds, whites and greens. Even a brief spot of late-Elton gruffness – that pub-singerish vocal chuff that sometimes makes him seem in desperate need of the Heimlich manoeuvre – couldn’t mar Rocket Man as it launched gracefully towards its firework finale beneath a film of Earth from space that felt almost life size.
Elton told the crowd that his early piano hymn Skyline Pigeon ‘was only ever popular in Brazil’ - Shutterstock
“I’d finished playing live, but we didn’t come to Brazil because of Covid,” Elton said, explaining his belated visit. And if the inevitable rumours are true that this (and two subsequent Mexico shows) are genuinely to be Elton’s last, he set out to leave us with a sense of the sheer breadth of his songcraft. For all the cornball boogie of Crocodile Rock and the irresistible schmaltz of Candle in the Wind or Sacrifice, there were also rich and unexpected turns: elegant country edifice Levon, the swampland sedition of Have Mercy on the Criminal, and a rare run through Skyline Pigeon, an early piano hymn which, he claimed, “was only ever popular in Brazil”.
He closed with Your Song, framed on the screen by a funereal black curtain as if paying his sombre self-respects. But in Cold Heart, I’m Still Standing and Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting there was still so much life. Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me he sang at one of countless high points - no chance, tonight Elton left an indelible scorch-mark on the retina of rock history.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
