For most of the 72,000 concert-goers who had handed over £3.50 to see Elton John, The Beach Boys, The Eagles, Joe Walsh, Rufus featuring Chaka Khan and Stackridge at the Midsummer Music festival at London's Wembley Stadium, Saturday, June 21, 1975 is a date that'll live long in the memory. For Elton John, however, the biggest show he'd played in his career to that point was "an unmitigated disaster", and his mum wasn't too impressed either, as Beatles legend Ringo Starr reveals in a new interview with The Times newspaper.
Starr shared his memory of the day in question during his conversation with writer Paul Sexton after discussing the risks artists face when they choose to bless audiences at gigs with new material, rather than tried-and-tested fan favourites.
“In the late Nineties, I would put in, like, two or three from the new album, and you could feel the room empty,” he admits. “It happens to everybody.”
By way of an example, Starr cites Elton John's 1975 show, at which the singer/songwriter elected to perform his recently-released Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy album in its entirety, debuting 10 new songs in a row. Starr says that he bailed on the gig after Bitter Fingers, song three of the ten, and that Elton John's mother did the same.
