I Hope Elton John Knows What He Is Doing

I hope Elton John knows what he is doing. If you visit his website, you’ll see that the Rocket Man is going to tour non-stop in 2022 up to the following year, from January 2022 to July 2023 to be exact. His Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour looks quite a marathon consisting of about 135 dates, thus a very dense schedule for a 74-year-old man. The world tour, rescheduled from 2020, will start in New Orleans and end in Finland after traveling through the States, Canada, Europe, and even New Zealand.

It’s not the first time that an aging pop-rock star is embarking on a mammoth tour, The Stones are about to finish one this month – although they ‘only’ played 15 dates in 2021 – and Bob Dylan just embarked on a worldwide tour that is supposed to last till 2024!

But the situation is different with Elton John. Just last week, NME was reporting that the rockstar admitted, during an interview, to remain “in pain with restricted movement in his hip joint, which means that he currently cannot maneuver himself in and out of a car.” He also said that he was forced to postpone the remaining November dates on the UK and European legs of his tour, already rescheduled because of the pandemic, till April 2023. This means he will be awfully busy for a year and a half…  he will even turn 76 when the tour is over! The pop legend had a hip replacement after a fall during the summer of 2021, and he was still seen using a cane this week when he received a great honor from Prince Charles –he was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honor for his music career and campaigning work on AIDS.

The tour is starting in January, which leaves him about 2 months to get rid of his cane and overcome the pain, and at 74, it’s not an easy thing to do. He is obviously not as fit as Mick Jagger.

I always wonder what makes these music icons tour during their seventies or even eighties in Dylan’s case. They have nothing to prove and it’s obviously not for the money. So what is it? Do they want to show to themselves they are still fully alive and still relevant to the world? But when you have Elton John’s catalog, is this necessary?

The problem with chronic pain is that rock stars often end up taking pain killers to be able to go on, and we know what happened to Tom Petty for example. He took a combination of opioids because of some unbearable pain due to a hip injury. He had also been constantly touring during 2017 and dropped dead on October 2nd, 2017. He was also 10 years younger than John.

I am certainly not predicting anything – that would be awful – but both situations look dangerously similar and this is very worrisome. I just hope Elton John knows what he is doing.