(Credits: Far Out / Heinrich Klaffs / Alamy)
Wed 20 August 2025 22:00, UK
He may be considered the worldly grandfather of modern pop these days, but at least at one point in time, Elton John wasn’t exactly famous for his wizened and nurturing demeanour.
Cast your mind back to the 1970s and 1980s, and what you would have known the man for was being brash, bold, and largely a free spirit spun out of control. Of course, in some respects, he has never lost certain aspects of these qualities as they are central to his brand – but the essential difference back then is that his whole persona was fuelled by a concoction of powders and pills.
That’s not said in an attempt to trivialise or make light of John’s well-documented addiction battles, because we all know how close to the brink it brought him, but there was no escaping the simple fact that drugs dictated everything he did for a period of time, whether it was the songs he released, the clothes he wore or, indeed, the wild antics he got up to. Unfortunately for them, The Rolling Stones got to realise the brunt of that possibly at the most inconvenient time.
Let’s set the scene. The year was 1975, and the band were playing a gig in Fort Collins, Colorado. Both The Stones and John were at the peak of their fame – and boy, did they want you to know it. You could say the event was like the butting of two over-inflated heads, but when John strolled into the concert that night, he wanted to make sure that everyone knew he was there. It goes without saying that, of course, there were some substances involved.
The Rocketman hazily recalled the moment decades later in his memoir Me, when he recalled being invited up on stage to perform ‘Honky Tonk Women’… and then all the rest of the songs as well. “I decided it was going so well, I’d stay on and jam along to the rest of their set, without first taking the precaution of asking The Stones if they wanted an auxiliary keyboard player,” John confessed, clearly having thrown all caution to the wind.
“For a while, I thought Keith Richards kept staring at me because he was awestruck by the brilliance of my improvised contributions to their oeuvre,” he added, as if The Rolling Stones could have been doing with any more pomp and flair. But then, “After a few songs, it finally penetrated my brain that the expression on his face wasn’t really suggestive of profound musical appreciation.”
You can probably imagine Richards’ expression yourself – and while, naturally, he too was no stranger to the state that John was making his befuddled decisions in, having it shown up to the world in one of the most public places possible really wasn’t the most ideal situation. This reality soon dawned on John. “I quickly scuttled off, noting as I went that Keith was still staring at me in a manner that suggested we’d be discussing this later, and decided it might be best if I didn’t hang around for the after-show party.”
Almost like being sent to the headteacher’s office of rock and roll, John firmly found himself in the doghouse – not that this stopped him, however, from still riding the drug-induced rollercoaster for a few years yet. There were, of course, many lessons that getting sober taught Elton John: clarity, freedom, and newfound creativity. But most of all? Don’t mess with The Rolling Stones.
Related Topics