Elton John - Philadelphia Freedom
Live at the Met Center in Bloomington, MN
August 22, 1986
The USA "Ice On Fire" tour saw Elton's voice experience problems from the very beginning. The first two shows on 8/15 and 8/16 in Clarkston, MI had to be cancelled due to "laryngitis", but the reality of the situation was his nodules would have already been developed in some state by this point, and he'd be diagnosed less than a month later on either 9/9 or 9/10.
The nature of nodules being what they are, be they fully formed/hardened on well on their way there, the first 2 weeks of the tour were wildly inconsistent. Now when the tour started off, the shows were scheduled for three concerts in a row, followed by a day off.
Every show saw Elton's in seemingly completely different vocal shape from the day before, and even the day following. But the one thing that was consistent was that in every three day stint of shows, the third day always found him in much weaker shape by comparison to the first.
Despite these inconsistencies, it would be unfair to say it was all bad at the start of the tour. There are a few solid and enjoyable nights where Elton managed to remain pretty consistent through-out.
Bloomington, MN on 8/22/86 is a good example of one of these shows. It's a surprisingly consistent show, especially with it being the second of three shows in a row. One notable thing is that he was still trying to figure out how to do the end of "Philadelphia Freedom". The two prior concerts found him playing with different phrasings and just trying to find what worked. This show has him finding a good compromise, opting to go for the D5 on "yes I DO!", and then doing his weird enthusiastic-G4-screaming thing for the rest of them. Unfortunately, the D5 would disappear very shortly after this. The final show we have where he does it is the day after this concert, 8/23. He brings it back on the 9/11/86 concert, but doesn't quite get it, and after that he never does it again on this tour, or any other.
But regardless, this show gives a good example of what he could do in the brief period leading up to disaster, and of what a consistent show on this tour would sound like. Enjoy!