Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me was towering. The singalongs to Your Song and Candle in the Wind in the dusky blue light as a half-moon rose above the Pyramid Stage were spinetingling. But it has the people, and when they are enclosed in a sense of spontaneous community, hundreds of thousands singing and swaying on a hillside, waving flags, united by the power of music, it really is extraordinarily life-affirming. It doesn’t have the biggest screens, the most spectacular production, the latest state-of-the-art special effects. The spectacle of Glastonbury is the people. You might think this old showbiz veteran had seen it all in a career of over 60 years, but he seemed genuinely awed and utterly delighted by the occasion. Or will we? All good things come to an end, but the crowd laughed indulgently when Elton said that it “may” be his last ever show in England, as if he was already having second thoughts. It’s hard to believe we will never hear them performed live by their composer again. Brandon Flowers of The Killers lent some rocky edge to Tiny Dancer, whilst genre-bending art-pop star Rina Sawayama gamely stood in for Kiki Dee on a cheery Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.īut the songs themselves do all the heavy lifting. It was standing room only on the hillside as every single denizen of the festival turned out to pay their respects, leaving every other stage and field of this sprawling site as empty as a ghost town.Įlton wore a shiny gold suit, sent rippling glissandos of virtuoso piano through the Somerset air and sang like a soulful champion, backed by a quarter of a million revellers singing tunefully along. Everyone was there, and I’m not just talking about the stars watching from the side of the stage, including Paul McCartney, Eminem and most of Glastonbury’s headliners. Glastonbury just threw the greatest retirement party in pop history. It started with the explosive bang of Elton John’s rip-roaring take on The Who’s Pinball Wizard and just kept going, absolute banger after banger pounding out in an atmosphere of joyous celebration, writes Neil McCormick.
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