Elton John - Hammersmith Odeon 1973

This is Elton John live in concert at West London's Hammersmith Odeon back on the 22nd December 1973.

Despite suffering from a heavy cold, Elton John clearly wanted to give this concert his best effort, the results are self evident, both the band and Elton were clearly up for the gig, possibly spurred on by national coverage on BBC radio in the UK.

Looking at the set list not far from four decades on, I remain surprised at the amount of career defining material he had already produced at this stage. As boots go this is better quality, both in terms of audio and performance than a lot of officially released live albums from the early 1970's.

Source: PRE-FM from BBC transcription reels.

Sound Quality: Very good stereo mp3@192kbps.

Genre: Rock and contemporary pop.

Set: Full Set (almost).

Set List:

CD 1:
01 - Intro - Funeral For A Friend - Love Lies Bleeding
02 - Candle In The Wind
03 - Hercules
04 - Rocket Man
05 - Bennie And The Jets
06 - Daniel
07 - This Song Has No Title
08 - Honky Cat

CD 2:
01 - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
02 - The Ballad Of Danny Bailey
03 - Elderberry Wine
04 - I've Seen That Movie Too
05 - All The Young Girls Love Alice
06 - Crocodile Rock
07 - Your Song
08 - Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting

Comments:

From Wikipedia: The pop album Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player came out at the start of 1973, and produced the hits "Crocodile Rock" and "Daniel"; the former became his first U.S. number one hit. (Ironically this, like his other famous 1970s solo hits, would be popular in his native land but never top the UK Singles Chart; this achievement would have to wait two decades.)

Both the album and "Crocodile Rock" were the first album and single, respectively on the consolidated MCA Records label in the USA, replacing MCA's other labels including Uni.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road gained instant critical acclaim and topped the chart on both sides of the Atlantic, remaining at Number One for two months. It also temporarily established John as a glam rock star. It contained the Number One hit "Bennie and the Jets", along with the popular and praised "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", "Candle in the Wind", "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting", "Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" and "Grey Seal" (originally recorded and released in 1970 as the B-side to the UK-only single, "Rock and Roll Madonna").

Reloaded - 29/May/2015 - download link in comments.