Elton John and Brandi Carlile have played a live show at the London Palladium that will be aired on TV next month.
The pair previewed material from their upcoming collab album Who Believes In Angels?, which is out next week. Tracks included LGTBQ anthem Swing For The Fences, You Without Me and an intriguing new song inspired by one of the biggest influences on Elton’s career: Little Richard.
“This is about how Little Richard was gay, and then he felt bad about being gay,” Elton is reported to have said, before launching into a new song called Little Richard’s Bible and giving his Yamaha grand piano some punishment in honour of the song's subject.
There were a couple of covers - Patsy Cline’s Crazy and He’ll Have To Go, a 1959 hit for Jim Reeves - as well as the Elton classics he’s obliged to play on these such occasions: I’m Still Standing, Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me, Tiny Dancer, Your Song… you know the drill.
Carlile also related how she first crossed paths with Elton - she wrote a letter to him years ago - and Elton revealed he owns “somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 sunglasses.” The 77-year-old star also related that he hadn’t played a gig at the Palladium since a Royal Variety Show in the 1970s, and how he'd been gobsmacked at Liberace’s costume, which was “made out of lightbulbs.”
Elton’s band featured Red Hot Chili Pepper Chad Smith on drums, with super-producer Andrew Watt acting as Musical Director for the night. As is the way with these made-for-TV specials, there was also a smattering of famous fans in the audience, including Ronnie Wood, the actress Lily James, Sam Fender, Sacha Baron Cohen and comedians Matt Lucas and David Walliams.
An Evening With Elton John and Brandi Carlile will go on CBS in the States on 6 April. In the UK it'll land a couple of weeks later on ITV1 on 19 April. It’s also due to be aired on Paramount+, though no date for that has been confirmed yet.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
How to write a ‘sticky’ hit: Pure luck can put you in the charts, but sticking around to make the big bucks needs pure science
“We had a request from the studio guys: ‘Is it okay if this local church choir comes in to record for a day?’ And thank God we let them in!”: How Def Leppard created a rock anthem - with a little bit of divine intervention
