Elton John has announced a specially curated bill of up-and-coming artists for his sellout show at American Express presents BST Hyde Park on June 24. The show, part of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road – The Final Tour, will feature a wide array of young talent personally selected by Elton himself.
Underlining the superstar’s unrivaled reputation as a champion of new artists, the bill features no fewer than seven fast-rising acts of whom Elton has been an early adopter. They include Rina Sawayama, the BRIT Award nominee who emerged with the acclaimed debut album Sawayama in 2020. She collaborated with Elton last year on the duet “Chosen Family” and she’s since featured with Charli XCX on her hit single “Beg For You.” Sawayama’s much-awaited second album Hold The Girl will be out in September.
Los Angeles soul trio Gabriels join the bill, still glowing from Elton’s description of their 2021 five-track release Love And Hate In A Different Time as “one of the most seminal records I’ve heard in the past 10 years.” Also performing will be Let’s Eat Grandma, the British pop duo of Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton, hot on the heels of the April release of their much-praised Two Ribbons album. The group had already won a Q Award and played at Coachella.
Talent from far and wide
Mercury Prize-nominated, Trinidad-born, London-based rapper, producer and songwriter Berwyn is also in Elton’s Hyde Park line-up along with 21-year-old, Melbourne-raised singer-songwriter Thomas Headon; 18-year-old newcomer Tom A. Smith; and Congolese vocalist Juanita Euka, the niece of the late figurehead of the country’s music, Franco Luambo Makiadi.
The Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, already scheduled to run over three years when it was first announced, sees its span extend to five after the extended postponements of the lockdown period. It will end in 2023, having been named Billboard’s Top Rock Tour and Pollstar’s Major Tour Of The Year in 2019.
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