Farewell Yellow Brick Road

Farewell Yellow Brick Road was the forty-ninth and final concert tour by English musician Elton John. It began in Allentown, Pennsylvania, US, on 8 September 2018, and ended in Stockholm, Sweden, on 8 July 2023. It consisted of 330 concerts worldwide. The tour's name and its poster reference John's 1973 album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

According to Billboard, the tour grossed $939.1 million from 328 shows, making it the second highest-grossing tour of all time.

Background
On 24 January 2018, it was announced that Elton John would be retiring from touring and would soon embark on a three-year tour. The first concert was announced to take place at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania on 8 September 2018 followed by an extensive tour of the United States and Canada before moving on to Europe. John cited spending time with his children as the reason for his retirement. Tickets went on sale on 24 February and within hours tickets for the first 60 shows were sold out.

Further North American tour dates were announced on 26 September 2018. John's official website stated: "Salt Lake City, Tacoma, Memphis, Charlotte and Western Canada as well as return dates in Toronto, Philadelphia, Nashville, Cleveland and more". Thirteen days later, concerts were revealed for Lille, Paris, Bordeaux and Nîmes, taking place in Summer 2019.

A Winter 2020 tour taking place in the United Kingdom and Ireland was announced on 8 November 2018. The original announcement detailed sixteen concerts taking place across England, Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland. It was later postponed to 2021, along with the rest of the second European leg and the third North American leg, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On 15 September 2021, the European leg was postponed to 2023 after John sustained a hip injury.

On 23 June 2021, a stadium leg was announced which was to go across Europe, North America and Oceania. It should have started in Frankfurt in the Deutsche Bank Park, but the new stadium stage had already been used in Oslo in the Telenor Arena. The stadium tour stopped in several major cities such as Milan, Paris, Liverpool, London, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington D.C., Las Vegas, in Los Angeles with three shows at Dodger Stadium, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

After it was announced in January 2022 that the tour would resume, music director Davey Johnstone stated that the band would wear masks and have tests every two days during the tour. John's first show back took place in New Orleans, Louisiana. He had to temporarily postpone two shows in Dallas after testing positive for COVID-19 and experiencing mild symptoms, and resumed the tour again after making a full recovery. John would go on to perform tour dates across the UK and Europe for 2022 and 2023, when the tour wrapped up. At the 27 March 2022 performance in Lincoln, Nebraska, a live hookup was established during the concert and Elton's Oscars charity benefit, which he had not missed in 30 years of hosting, but opted to perform in Lincoln on that date because of the postponements. During the 24 September 2022 performance at Washington, D.C., United States President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden invited John to perform at the White House, where he was presented with the National Humanities Medal.

On 2 December 2022, John announced the final show of his UK Tour would be headlining Glastonbury Festival in 2023 saying "There is no more fitting way to say goodbye to my British fans". The show was watched by 120,000 people on site and with an average of 7.3 million viewers on BBC One, breaking the record of Diana Ross, who held it with 3.1 million viewers, making him the most watched festival act ever.

The tour ended in Stockholm, Sweden, on 8 July 2023.

Commercial performance
John announced the farewell tour in January 2018 with arena legs in both North America and Europe, to begin in Pennsylvania in September 2018. By the end of the first leg of the tour in North American arenas, on 18 March 2019, it had grossed over $125 million and won a Billboard Music Award in the category Top Rock Tour.

The tour's first three North American legs combined to $268.2 million over 116 shows, while his North American stadium run from July – Nov. 2022 brought in $222.1 million across 33 shows. The tour's 2019 European arena leg grossed $49.9 million, while the 2022 European stadium leg grossed $69.2 million in 2022, resulting in a combined worldwide total of $749.9 million from 5 million tickets sold by November 2022.

In January 2023, the Oceania leg grossed $40.9 million and sold 242,000 tickets. In total, the Australia & NZ shows in 2020 & 2023 have sold 875,000 tickets alone. By the end of the Oceania stadium leg in January 2023, Billboard reported that the tour has grossed $817.9 million from 278 shows and over 5.3 million tickets sold, making it the highest-grossing tour of all-time after surpassing the previous record-holder, Ed Sheeran's ÷ Tour at $776.2 million. It became the first tour in history to surpass $800 million, and $900 million.

By the final show in July 2023, the tour surpassed $939.1 million in gross and 6.1 million ticket sales, extending the record for highest-grossing tour in history.

Recordings
On 30 May 2018, it was announced that Elton John had partnered with Peex to personalise the volume for fans' concert experiences, plus recording the show to relive it.

On 18 May 2022, Disney Original Documentary and Disney+ announced that John's November 2022 shows at Dodger Stadium would be recorded for a documentary titled Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: The Final Elton John Performances and the Years That Made His Legend, directed by R.J. Cutler and David Furnish. The film is slated to premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival as Elton John: Never Too Late.

Before that, the Dodger Stadium concert on 20 November 2022 was livestreamed on Disney+ as Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium. That concert featured guest appearances by Brandi Carlile, Kiki Dee and Dua Lipa. The recording would go on to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Special (Live) at the 75th ceremony in 2024, allowing John to attain EGOT status.

Elton's Glastonbury set on 25 June was broadcast on BBC One and BBC Radio 2.

Set list
The set list was changed several times during the tour. Starting from minor changes in terms of releasing and adding a few songs until the concert in Sydney on 7 March 2020, to a restructuring of the set list after the lockdown.

The first set list is from the concert in Stuttgart, Germany where the first set list was played, which was used in this form until John's last concert before the lockdown. This set list is characterized by the use of more deep cuts than the others. John played songs such as "Indian Sunset", "All the Girls Love Alice" and "Believe", which were rarely played live by John.


 * 1) "Bennie and the Jets"
 * 2) "All the Girls Love Alice"
 * 3) "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues"
 * 4) "Border Song"
 * 5) "Tiny Dancer"
 * 6) "Philadelphia Freedom"
 * 7) "Indian Sunset"
 * 8) "Rocket Man"
 * 9) "Take Me to the Pilot"
 * 10) "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word"
 * 11) "Someone Saved My Life Tonight"
 * 12) "Levon"
 * 13) "Candle in the Wind"
 * 14) "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding"
 * 15) "Burn Down the Mission"
 * 16) "Daniel"
 * 17) "Believe"
 * 18) "Sad Songs"
 * 19) "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me"
 * 20) "The Bitch Is Back"
 * 21) "I'm Still Standing"
 * 22) "Crocodile Rock"
 * 23) "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting"
 * 24) "Your Song"
 * 25) "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"

The second set list was used from the first concert after the lockdown to the last concert of the tour, except for the Glastonbury Festival performance. This set sticks with John's greatest record and live hits, with the exception of the deep cut "Have Mercy on the Criminal".


 * 1) "Bennie and the Jets"
 * 2) "Philadelphia Freedom"
 * 3) "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues"
 * 4) "Border Song"
 * 5) "Tiny Dancer"
 * 6) "Have Mercy on the Criminal"
 * 7) "Rocket Man"
 * 8) "Take Me to the Pilot"
 * 9) "Someone Saved My Life Tonight"
 * 10) "Levon"
 * 11) "Candle in the Wind"
 * 12) "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding"
 * 13) "Burn Down the Mission"
 * 14) "Sad Songs"
 * 15) "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word"
 * 16) "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me"
 * 17) "The Bitch Is Back"
 * 18) "I'm Still Standing"
 * 19) "Crocodile Rock"
 * 20) "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting"
 * 21) "Cold Heart"
 * 22) "Your Song"
 * 23) "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"

This set list is from Elton John's concert at the Glastonbury Festival, which was also his last concert in the UK.


 * 1) "Pinball Wizard"
 * 2) "The Bitch Is Back"
 * 3) "Bennie and the Jets"
 * 4) "Daniel"
 * 5) "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"
 * 6) "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues"
 * 7) "Philadelphia Freedom"
 * 8) "Are You Ready for Love"
 * 9) "Sad Songs"
 * 10) "Someone Saved My Life Tonight"
 * 11) "Until I Found You"
 * 12) "Your Song"
 * 13) "Candle in the Wind"
 * 14) "Tiny Dancer"
 * 15) "Don't Go Breaking My Heart"
 * 16) "Crocodile Rock"
 * 17) "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting"
 * 18) "I'm Still Standing"
 * 19) "Cold Heart"
 * 20) "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me"
 * 21) "Rocket Man"

Personnel

 * Elton John – lead vocals, piano
 * Davey Johnstone – guitars, backing vocals, music director
 * Nigel Olsson – drums, backing vocals
 * Matt Bissonette – bass guitar, backing vocals
 * John Mahon – percussion, backing vocals
 * Kim Bullard – keyboards
 * Ray Cooper – percussion
 * John Jorgenson – guitar, backing vocals (1 May 2019 – 7 July 2019)