Elton John - 1980-09-13 - Central Park, NY (FM)

Elton John
1980-09-13
Central Park
New York, NY
Soundboard Recording
320 kbps
Artwork Included

01. Introduction
02. Funeral For A Friend >
03. Love Lies Bleeding
04. Tiny Dancer
05. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
06. All The Girls Love Alice
07. crowd noise
08. Rocket Man
09. Sartorial Eloquence
10. Philadelphia Freedom
11. Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
12. Banter
13. Saturday Night
14. All I Want Is You 

15. Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)
16. Harmony
17. White Lady, White Powder
18. Little Jeannie
19. Bennie And The Jets
20. Imagine 
21. Ego
22. Have Mercy On The Criminal
23. Someone Saved My Life Tonight
24. crowd noise
25. Banter
26. Your Song
27. Bite Your Lip (Get Up And Dance) > Good Golly Miss Molly > Bite Your Lip (Get Up And Dance) (Reprise) 

28. crowd noise

Elton John - 1980-09-13 - Central Park, NY (FM) 

As mentioned in earlier posts on this blog, Elton John ended his Louder As A Concorde Tour with 7 shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden in August 1976. He would play only 9 concerts in 1977 and would even announce his retirement at a November 3 show that year. The stress of writing, recording and touring had clearly caught up with Elton. The next time he played New York City would be in October 1979, but it would be a marked contrast to his 1976 shows. Instead of the 20,000 seat MSG, the venue would be the 3000 seat Palladium. Rather than being backed by a full band, Elton was accompanied only by percussionist Ray Cooper. The shows were a return to an earlier, simpler time in his career. When Elton finally did decide to come back to New York with a full band, he did it in a fashion befitting Captain Fantastic. On September 13, 1980, 38 years ago today, he played the Great Lawn in Central Park in front of almost 500,000 people. The show was broadcast on WNEW-FM and taped for a DVD, so plenty of video is available on You-Tube. During his 22 song set, Elton donned several costumes, including dressing up as Donald Duck for the encores. Near the end of the set, he played John Lennon’s Imagine, little knowing at the time that his long time friend would be tragically murdered less than 3 months later. Download this FM broadcast to hear Elton's triumphant return to the biggest stage of all in New York!