The Best Night Out in Bathurst

Early in 2019 there was a very surprising announcement in the local Bathurst press.  Elton John was going to perform in Bathurst as a part of his three year long farewell tour.  To our amazement, it wasn't an April Fool's joke or fake news.  It was real.  We were to be the smallest town he has performed in for many years.  Wow!

As you can imagine, it was a mad scramble to buy tickets when they were released.

The big night was on Wednesday 22 January, 2020.

Mick and I saw him down in Sydney back in 1986.   I had to look this up.  I didn't realise it was quite that long ago.  He wasn't very well and didn't perform on the following evening.

Back to now......

We arrived nice and early to have something to eat and soak up the atmosphere.  We have had some friends travel down from Queensland for the concert and long weekend as well, which made it special.

The venue gradually filled up.

We had purchased a package deal, as they were all that were left at the time, and as a result received a goodies bag.  It consisted of a bag, poster and box of bits and bobs.

Nice little mementos of the evening. I also bought Mick a t-shirt, as one day I hope to make him a t-shirt quilt and it would be nice to have one as a reminder of this special night.

They ended up releasing more tickets on a couple of occasions and then "Standing on the Hill" tickets.  Apparently, there were about 20,000 people in attendance at our local sports oval.  It was a sea of people. This photo was taken quite early in the piece.  They hold a round of the NRL football here each year and it is considered to be big with about 10,000 people attending that.

  

The crowd erupted as Elton John came onto the stage exactly at 8 o'clock.  He is a tiny speck on  the bottom left of the huge stage.  

It took the best part of a week for everything to be set up.  There was a convoy of semi trailers to bring all the gear.  There were about 300 people involved.  The main entourage of 89 people arrived by plane on the Tuesday, but the plane was too large to land at our airport and to be diverted to Orange.  It was a 737, and was the largest plane to ever land at Orange as well. Elton John arrived on another plane to Bathurst on the Wednesday afternoon and he left straight after the concert.

You can get a better idea of the crowd from this shot that came up on the big screen.

It was the perfect summer's evening for the concert.  The day had been hot, but not unbearable and the evening was lovely and balmy.  There was no wind, smoke, dust or electrical storms.  It couldn't have been better. We had a really violent storm on Monday and on the day after the concert the wind howled and we had one of the worst dust storms of the summer. I wouldn't have wanted to be the ones dismantling everything on the Thursday.

The graphics were something else.

The big screens were quite a feature of the show.

He is such a showman. It's hard to believe he has been in a song writing partnership with Bernie Taupin for 53 years.  He first toured Australia in 1970.

The crowds were having a ball.

More of the stunning backdrops.

At the age of 72 he certainly hasn't lost his touch.  This tour is fairly full on, with performances every few days.  

The show ended with "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", after which he waved and walked off into the sunset.  What a finish.  What a man.