Watch Elton John Deliver Emotional 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' To 'Magnificent' Fans At Final Show

Elton John’s mammoth Farewell Yellow Brick Road World Tour has finally ended. After nearly five years of serenading fans on almost every corner of the globe, the Rocket Man has said goodbye after 333 shows on this farewell run.

His final show occurred at Tele2 Arena, Stockholm, Sweden, on Saturday night (8 July). 

Opening with Bennie And The Jets and running through numerous classics, John awed fans with Tiny Dancer, Levon, Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me, The Bitch Is Back, I’m Still Standing, and many more. But the emotional rendition of the final song, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, was truly breathtaking.

Addressing the 45,000 fans in the arena, John thanked them for their decades of support across his career. “I’ve had the most wonderful career… beyond belief,” John said, per NME. “Fifty years of pure joy playing music… how lucky am I? I wouldn’t be sitting here… if it wasn’t for you.

“You bought the singles, the CDs, the albums, the cassettes… [and] more importantly, you bought the tickets to the shows. You know how much I love to play live. It’s been my lifeblood to play for you guys. You’ve been absolutely magnificent.” You can watch a video of the performance and poignant speech below.

Rolling Stone reports that Coldplay also paid tribute to the music icon via a video message from their own concert at Gamla Ullevi stadium in Gothenburg. 

While playing John’s Rocket Man, Coldplay’s video screen went to Elton John’s final concert, with Chris Martin asking, “Here we are in Gothenburg with everybody here, waving hello. Can you see us, Mr Elton?” A jubilant John replied, “I can see you.”

Martin continued, “Elton, we want to say from all of us here, from all the fans and all the artists that you’ve loved and inspired and helped, we just love you so much.

“We’re so grateful for everything you’ve done for us, everything you’ve done for the AIDS Foundation, every time you’ve been kind to anybody, everything you’ve done for LGBTQ, everything you’ve done for fashion and eyewear, everything you’ve done for sexiness and love… Everything you’ve done for music… The thousands of shows you’ve done, we love you so much.”

Farewelling John from Gothenburg, Martin said, “Happy retirement, and we’re going to miss you so much, man. Here’s Gothenburg going crazy.” You can watch the moment below.

As of 18 June, the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour is a touring artist's most successful run, grossing $910.4 million, per a new Billboard Boxscore report.

Elton John was the first artist to take over $800 million in January, beating a previous record set by Ed Sheeran’s Divide tour. Now the first artist to earn over $900 million, John is ahead of Sheeran ($776.4 million) and U2’s 360 tours ($736.4 million) by $134 million.