Elton to headline coronavirus benefit
SIR Elton John, Backstreet Boys and Mariah Carey will be among the performers singing from home at the Fox Presents the iHeart Living Room Concert For America.
The Your Song hitmaker will also host the one-hour, ad-free TV special, which will air this weekend and feature performances from the likes of Backstreet Boys, Billie Eilish, Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, Mariah Carey and Alicia Keys, all from their own homes.
The performances will be filmed using the artists’ own phones, cameras and audio equipment to keep direct interaction with others to a minimum.
The concert will pay tribute to health workers, first responders and local heroes who are trying to help others amid the pandemic and will encourage viewers to support two organisations providing aid during the pandemic, Feeding America and First Responders Children’s Foundation.
The benefit concert will air on Fox at 9pm, March 29 in the slot that would have originally broadcast the 2020 iHeartRadio Music Awards – March 29 from 9pm-10pm – as well as on the IHeart Radio app and on iHeartMedia radio stations throughout the US.
Elton recently said he was having a “fantastic” time at home with his husband, David Furnish, and their kids Zachary, 9, and Elijah, 7, after cancelling tour dates due to the pandemic.
He said: “I don’t think realistically speaking that we, artists, can expect to go back on the road (before summer).
“And so people are going to take solace in music. They’re going to catch up on a lot of movies at home. They’re going to get bored. We’re playing every day; at 5.30 we play
Snakes and Ladders, which in America is called Chutes and Ladders, and it’s become a family routine now and it’s fantastic.
“To be honest with you, it’s great to be able to spend this much time with my boys because normally I don’t, even though they’ve been on the road with us since November in Australia and New Zealand. It’s, this is 24/7 with them and it’s fantastic.” However, the Goodbye Yellow
Brick Road hitmaker joked his enjoyment of family time may change if they remain under lockdown for a long time.
He quipped: “I mean I’m saying that after a week. Check on me in about three weeks.”