Fans flock to watch Elton

SIR Elton John’s long-awaited return to Hobart this week has been hailed as a huge success, with thousands of fans turning out to see the flamboyant music legend in action.

Sir Elton and his band performed at the Derwent Entertainment Centre on Wednesday and Thursday nights — Sir Elton’s first Hobart shows since February 1990 — as part of his Once In A Lifetime Australian tour.

Tasmanian-born promoter Michael Chugg, who previously brought Sir Elton to Launceston in 2007 and 2012, said about 12,000 fans had attended across the two Hobart concerts.

“It was sensational, it really blew me away.

“We sold every seat, basically, and people loved it — there was standing ovations after individual songs,’’ Mr Chugg said.

“The band sounded fantastic and the stage looked incredible. (Elton) was very talkative, he enjoyed both shows and the audience was fantastic — he enjoyed the fact that they were loving it so much.”

He said Sir Elton stayed in Hobart overnight on Wednesday and then flew straight to Sydney following Thursday night’s show, before heading to Cairns this morning ahead of tonight’s tour finale.

He said the lack of a larger indoor venue prevented many big-name international acts visiting Hobart and that huge ticket sales for the Mackay, Wollongong and Cairns legs of the tour had made Sir Elton’s Hobart shows “feasible”.

“The venue’s not enough,” he said.

“I told them when they built it all those years ago that they should have built a 10,000seater and now they’re suffering because of it.

“Unless the acts are prepared to come down because they want to do it, or they can play outdoors, it’s just not going to happen.

“We did 37,000 (tickets) last weekend and 32,000 this weekend and that enabled us to do a couple of midweek shows where he didn’t need to do 15,000 each night.

“We’ve done nearly 70,000 over four shows without Hobart, so we didn’t need to come down there and make huge amounts of money.”

Mr Chugg said that while 70-year-old Sir Elton may tour Australia again in the future, this week’s shows were “probably” the last time he would perform in Tasmania. big