Saturday, November 28, 2009

This Day in Rock History (Lennon Joins Elton John Onstage in Final Concert Appearance)


November 28, 1974—After four hours of high-energy rock ‘n’ roll from opening act Kiki Dee and headliner Elton John, the 17,000 fans at Madison Square Garden this Thanksgiving night could not have imagined what could top what they’d already experienced. But when Elton coaxed visibly nervous friend John Lennon onto the stage to play, a collective gasp issued from the audience, followed by tumultuous applause for the ex-Beatle.

Among the surprised fans that night were my friends Brian and Karen. I’m sure they would agree that this was among the more memorable concerts they’ve ever attended.

In retrospect, of course, it became far more than that. Little did anyone know that for the next five years, Lennon would drop from sight, becoming a househusband in the wake of his reconciliation with wife Yoko Ono and the birth of their son Sean; that he would only emerge from all of this to record his album Double Fantasy; and that his murder at the hands of Mark David Chapman in 1980 would make his time onstage at the Garden his last public appearance.

Lennon’s appearance was the result of a dare between himself and Elton. The ex-Beatle met the Liberace of rock ‘n’ roll in Los Angeles during Lennon’s 15-month separation from Ono, a period of sexual experimentation fueled by drunkenness and desperation that he later described as his “lost weekend.”

The two British musicians immediately hit it off, and Elton played piano and sang a duet on the uptempo “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” from Lennon's Walls and Bridges LP. Unlike the other Beatles, Lennon had not had a #1 hit as a solo artist, but Elton believed that this would be the one.

Lennon was so certain it would not be that he accepted Elton’s bet: if the song topped the charts, Lennon would have to perform with him onstage. In mid-November 1974, the unlikely became reality, and Elton called to remind him of their friendly wager.

Backstage before the concert, Lennon was terrified at what he’d gotten himself into. He not only did not have the backup musicians with whom he’d played a few years before—the Plastic Ono Band—but he feared he would suffer by comparison with Elton, a force of nature onstage. The stage fright soon manifested itself in physical symptoms, as he threw up backstage.

Though the great majority of fans that night were surprised, there was a smaller number who had gotten wind that he might show up. One of them was Yoko, who managed to get a seat close to the front but out of her estranged husband’s direct sight line.

A good thing, too: She had sent two boxes of gardenias before the show—one to Elton, the other to Lennon. “Thank goodness she’s not here,” Lennon reportedly said. “Otherwise I know I’d never be able to go out there.”

Imagine if he’d known this—the audience would never have been treated to the sight of the legendary Beatle, in a plain black suit and dark glasses (a nice physical contrast to Elton's glam-rock attire), walking out gingerly to play “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” (Lennon had played guitar on Elton’s recent cover version), “Whatever Gets You Through the Night,” and a last, somewhat uncharacteristic “number of an old estranged fiancé of mine called Paul. This is one I never sang, it's an old Beatle number, and we just about know it." “I Saw Her Standing There” brought the crowd to its feet in a final frenzy.


Yoko made her way backstage, where she was photographed holding hands with Lennon. Shortly after the new year, with Lennon announcing that “our separation was a failure,” the two were back again for good this time.


Sometimes a concert is memorable because of the electricity a superstar generates, as in the three times I saw Bruce Springsteen. Other times it might be memorable largely because of the tragic circumstances that ensued shortly after, as when Harry Chapin died within a week after I saw him at the Dr. Pepper Music Festival at Pier 84 in New York in 1981. The Lennon appearance at Elton John’s “garden party” was a rare example of both.

I think Lennon, had he known his last time onstage would be in New York, would be tickled pink. My friend Brian alerted me to an interview that Lennon gave deejay Dennis Elsas, now included in the “Archives” section of WFUV-FM as part of a tribute to the musical legend.

In the conversation, Lennon spoke of his delight at living in New York, where the occasional fan requesting an autograph would make him feel “known enough to keep my ego going, but unknown enough to be able to get around.” That openness and innocence—qualities that few, if any, celebrities have been able to enjoy in our modern age of the stalker—left him prey to the madness of Mark David Chapman in December 1980.

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