The rock star is ‘doing a Melba’ and returning to Australia to say goodbye to the yellow brick road once more with feeling. | OPINION by Jeff Apter
Elton John — has announced another run of farewell shows in Australia early next year, having already said goodbye to Australia, one of his biggest markets, just before the COVID pandemic. Confused? I can’t blame you.
Perhaps he just enjoys saying goodbye . Regardless of motivation, the farewell tour caper has proved to be incredibly lucrative over the years for any number of artists. After all, if you’re considering hanging up the microphone, you’ll need as many dollars in your rock ‘n’ roll super fund as you can manage.
The first of several legs of John’s farewell tour grossed a handy $US125 million , so clearly as a marketing move, it’s flawless. The problem, however, is that your words may come back to bite you when you discover, as perhaps Sir Elton did, that “spending more time with my family” is nowhere near as much fun as life on the road.John is hardly the first artist to have trouble saying goodbye.
Then there’s Midnight Oil, who are currently completing their latest farewell, billed as The Final Tour. We shall see. Perhaps there is a way to tackle this dilemma. Neil Finn and Crowded House have always been a bit savvier than your average pop band. When they returned to the Sydney Opera House in 2016, 20 years after their,, farewell show to about 200,000 fans at the same site, they billed it as an “encore performance”. No mention of the words comeback, swansong or backflip. Smart move.