When Donald Trump asked one of his favorite musicians, Elton John, to perform at his 2017 inauguration, the singer politely declined in an email:
“Thank you so much for the extremely kind invitation to play at your opening,” John wrote. “I’ve given it a lot of thought, and as a British national I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to touch the inauguration of an American president. Please accept my apologies.”
On Friday night, Sir Elton offered a different statement in the form of the exuberant six-song solo piano concerto he played to a crowd of 2,000 on the South Lawn of the White House at the invitation of President Biden and the first lady Jill Biden.
Elton John ‘shocked’ and tearful after Biden surprises him with medal
“I don’t know what to say. What a dump!” said John, laughing, in a shiny black blazer as he looked through red-tinted glasses at the lighted columns of the south portico towering above him, playing under a glass-paneled tent , as members of the Marine Corps band spread down the stairs. on the Truman balcony in red uniforms. “I’ve played a few places before that’s been nice, but this is probably the icing on the cake.”
Tears and joy were more the order of the day than politics at an event the Bidens said they intended to be a concert for the American people called “A Night When Hope and History Rhyme.” The evening ended with the president surprising John with the National Humanities Medal, to which the singer wept, but that felt like a cornerstone of the larger message of celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the bipartisan unity needed to end the disease by 2030, as John and the United Nations have said, is the goal.
The last time John played at the White House was at a state dinner in 1998 during the Clinton administration in honor of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
According to a video of the event and interviews with attendees (media access was restricted), John looked genuinely excited as he played under a glass tent, with the crowd surrounding all sides of his stage. He scored several hits: “Your Song”, “Tiny Dancer”, “Rocket Man”, “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”, “Crocodile Rock” and “I’m Still Standing”.
Teachers, first responders, and LGBTQ activists were the largest part of the crowd, and all could have brought more. They were the ones John thanked first, long before he recognized the Bidens: “They are the heroes to me.”
Other guests included Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and her husband, Chasten, and Attorney General Merrick Garland, not to mention actress Anna Kendrick and John’s dear friend Billie Jean King . For those who recognized her, Ruby Bridges, the civil rights attorney who became one of the first black children to integrate New Orleans’ all-white public school system when she was 6, might have been the most impressive luminary .
Charlotte Clymer, a DC writer and LGBTQ activist who was pleasantly surprised to receive the invitation, was overcome with excitement. “I wouldn’t even say bipartisan, it felt more nonpartisan to me,” he told The Washington Post. “Everyone was there because they cared about people with HIV and AIDS. And of course they wanted to see Elton John perform.” The White House had focused on inviting members of vulnerable communities, and Clymer said the crowd felt very diverse: racially diverse, politically diverse, even gender diverse. For once, she added: “I wasn’t the only trans person at one of these events, which was nice to see.”
As appealing as the narrative is of Dark Brandon subtweeting his predecessor celebrating his favorite musician, this was not an event instigated by John as a form of high-level trolling. The conversation had started with an invitation to a “History Talks” symposium Saturday at Constitution Hall, featuring the likes of Serena Williams and former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, sponsored by the History Channel and A&E, which also sponsored the concert. . But that set date was also the day of John’s concert in the District at Nationals Park, “so it became an opportunity to perform the night before on the South Lawn of the White House. And, you know, what most spectacular setting,” David Furnish, John’s husband and manager, said Sunday.
“Elton loved the idea and the whole night was pitched to us as a nonpartisan event even though President Biden is in the White House,” Furnish continued, “but a nonpartisan event that he really had to talk about of common humanity, healing through unity, philanthropy.”
In the past, however, John had a friendly relationship with Trump. He played at the former president’s third wedding, and Trump had even been telling people he had secured John for the inauguration. Despite John asking him not to, Trump often used “Tiny Dancer” at his rallies. He also gave the nickname “Rocket Man” to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Instead, at this concert, John recognized another Republican, former First Lady Laura Bush, who had come with daughter Jenna Bush Hager and her children, saying that the Bush administration’s creation of Plan d The President’s Emergency Relief Fund for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, “was the most incredible,” adding, “We would never have come this far without the administration of President Bush giving us this money.” . He even gave a shout-out to Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (RS.C.) as a supporter of the fight against AIDS, which, John said, “to his credit he’s always come through.”
When John presented his setlist, Furnish said there was only one song he wanted to make sure he sang: “Crocodile Rock.” Years ago, when he and Biden, the vice president at the time, were on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” that same night, Biden told her that, as a single father, he used to drive his two children around and sing this song in the car. Later, Furnish said, he and John went to visit President Barack Obama at the White House during the time when, unbeknownst to them, Biden’s son Beau was terminally ill with brain cancer and unconscious to the hospital.
Biden had asked John to meet with his staff, “which I thought said a lot about him,” Furnish said. As Furnish recalls being told, Biden went to the hospital and told the unconscious Beau that Elton John had come to the White House that day and sang “Crocodile Rock” to him. “He didn’t regain consciousness. But we had been told that he smiled and definitely, you know, triggered something,” Furnish said. “So we knew it was a song with a real journey that had been on a real journey for the president. And so it was important to Elton that it be included in the set.”
Before launching into “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” John also acknowledged Jeanne White-Ginder, Ryan White’s mother, who had died of AIDS-related complications in 1990 and in his short life had become a symbol. of the cruelty suffered by the victims of the epidemic. The White family was John’s entry into becoming an AIDS activist. I had met them, “and I got to love them and watch them and they faced such terrible hostility,” he said from the stage. “And yet, when Ryan was dying in the hospital in Indianapolis, in the last week of his life where I went and tried to help Jeanne with household chores, there was no hate. There was no hate. There was just sorry”.
“It was a very moving experience to see someone who gives so much of themselves and doesn’t want any attention,” White-Ginder told The Post on Sunday, recalling those days. Six months after White’s death, John checked into rehab for cocaine and alcohol addiction and got sober. He said on stage Friday that family “saved my life.
The moment when Biden gave John the National Humanities Medal was a complete surprise not only to John, but also to Furnish, who as a manager usually knows everything. John had said he was completely “shocked” and broke down in tears during his summons.
“Elton had no idea he was getting the medal. It’s very rare to see Elton speechless at anything, and when it came out, he was completely blown away,” Furnish said. “And just everybody felt the love.”