Glastonbury 2023: The late change Elton John made to his set
According to special guest Stephen Sanchez, Elton John made a last-minute change to their joint performance at Glastonbury after they’d already rehearsed a different song.
Sanchez appeared with John during the headline set at Worthy Farm along with The Killers’ Brandon Flowers, Rina Sawayama and Gabriels singer Jacob Lusk. Unlike the other performers, Sanchez sang his own song ‘Until I Found You’ rather than a song from Elton’s back catalogue. However, the American musician has now revealed they originally planned to duet on ‘I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues’.
Speaking with Rolling Stone UK, Sanchez said: “We’d spent weeks doing that and then he came to see me and the boys at The Troubadour. The week after, he just rang me and said, ‘Stephen, I’ve had a thought. I don’t want you to sing one of my songs. I think it would be far better if you sang your song and we gave you this big moment for you and your career.'”
Looking back on the gesture, Sanchez added: “I was just blown away by that selflessness and his desire to, you know, expose new artists and new music.”
He also said of the performance: “When you’re on the Pyramid Stage and you hear all those voices screaming at you, it’s almost like they’re wrapping you up and it feels spiritual. It’s really, really wild, the visual memory of a sea of heads and faces and people with their own lives and memories.”
In a four-and-a-half-star review of John’s headline set, Far Out wrote: “What could’ve been a sun-drained damp squib with a too-big crowd turned out to be a magical, mellowed experience with a bewildering mass satiated by sweet songs that truly bought into the aura of this legendary gathering.”
Watch Sanchez and John perform together on the Pyramid Stage below.
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