Goodbye, Elton John: Inside the music legend’s final Dodger Stadium concert
Elton John sang “Candle in the Wind” Saturday night, the final Dodger concert for the iconic singer. John will play the stadium one more time, closing his farewell tour Saturday night. (Elton John)
It seems like only yesterday that Elton John was singing “Candle in the Wind” for the last time.
John, who turns 70 Sunday, was the most successful and innovative pop artist of his generation.
He has sold more than 100 million albums. He has conquered the U.S. twice: once at Yankee Stadium on his 2003 ” stadium-to-stadium” tour and once on his recent “Legends in Concert” tour.
And he has been at his most powerful and popular in Los Angeles, the world’s most populous city.
In that setting, John has become a cultural magnet. In concert, he’s still got it.
And with his star power, even his legacy is bound to be diminished.
John died Sept. 22 at age 73 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He had been hospitalized in hospital the past two weeks, said his wife, Annie Lennox, and she and his manager, Lester Bangs, were expected to appear on “Late Show With David Letterman” immediately after the concert.
John’s widow and manager, Bangs, said doctors were trying to keep him alive by injecting him with painkillers in a bid to control the cancer that spread to his gallbladder.
“There is nothing to do but to hang on,” Bangs told the New York Times before the end. “We are both very hopeful, but we haven’t seen any movement.”
John was greeted with a standing ovation by Dodger fans at Saturday’s concert in the stadium the day before his death. Even so, the performance took its toll on the singer, who spent his final days surrounded by his friends and family, at the home and studio in Los Angeles,