When Elton John was nearly punched by Keith Richards onstage
Once the 1970s kicked into high gear, it looked like Elton John had picked up the mantle that the rock legends of the previous decade had left behind. While not rock music in the traditional sense of the word, John’s brilliant music behind Bernie Taupin’s lyrics excited fans worldwide, eventually reaching the same level as fellow glam rock staples like T. Rex and David Bowie. Though John was always thankful to be alongside his heroes, he did have an unpleasant run-in with one of the biggest rock bands of all time.
When first coming up, John was known for being an obsessive nerd about music. Throughout his book ME, the legendary musician would speak at length about how much effort he put into keeping up with the charts, knowing every single album that came on the radio for whatever week it happened to be. In the middle of his constant love of Elvis Presley and Beatles records, there stood The Rolling Stones.
Working as the moral opposite to the Fab Four, both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had carved themselves into worthy rivals to John Lennon and Paul McCartney as songwriters, releasing one hit album after the next throughout works like Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. As they were coming off the release of Goats Head Soup, even they had to admit that John was becoming a big enough act to run with them.
When playing in the same area, John recalled one show where he got to play alongside the rest of the band. While the joint performance of ‘Honky Tonk Women’ went off without a hitch, John decided to stay around for a bit too long than he should have, which caused friction between him and Keith Richards.
According to John: “For a while, I thought Keith Richards kept staring at me because he was awe-struck by the brilliance of my improvised contributions. After a few songs, it finally penetrated my brain that the expression on his face wasn’t of musical appreciation. Actually, he looked remarkably like someone who was about to inflict appalling violence on a musician who’d outstayed his welcome.”
While John could hightail it out of there before anything screwy took place on stage, it didn’t do anything to soothe the waters between him and Richards. Throughout the rest of their career, both John and Richards would throw occasional jabs at one another in the press, with Richards thinking that John was doing nothing but posing for most of his career.
Not one to make light of that situation, John would lob the ball back a few years later, saying, “It would be awful to be like Keith Richards. He’s pathetic, poor thing. It’s like a monkey with arthritis, trying to go on stage and look young.”
No bad blood at that Stones gig was enough to keep John’s star from rising. Throughout the next few years, the release of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy would become staples of his career, while The Stones would fluctuate between albums, from the flashy It’s Only Rock and Roll to the tepid Emotional Rescue. Keith Richards may be a living legend at this point, but John also learned a valuable lesson that night: no matter how big you think you are, steer clear of Richards when you’re on his stage.
