Elton John - Philadelphia Freedom
Live at Ahoy in Rotterdam, Netherlands
April 24, 1986
We've established that the concert in Barcelona on 3/4/1986 was where the first signs of Elton's imminent vocal demise could be seen/heard. As the tour progressed through March into early April Elton would continue to reassess certain songs and change them up here and there to fit within the sudden and, at the time, inexplicable onset of vocal restrictions--something he'd never had to deal with before.
By early April he had gotten into a confident spot with the new phrasings and where to play things safe. But somehow, between the dates of April 1 in Berlin to April 24 in Rotterdam, another significant change would occur, one that was perhaps too subtle for anybody to truly know it was happening at the time, even Elton.
The actual sound/timbre of Elton's voice started to change. Admittedly it was a subtle change, but its the kind of change that should take longer than 23 days to happen. His voice, which since 1979 had always been a bright, clean, and somewhat lighter tenor sound, had begun to darken with a fuller and deeper baritone sound coming in, and a constant underlying husk behind it. Additionally, certain high notes and vowels took on this sort of garbled, growly sounding characteristic--which nowadays has come to be referred to as "angry birding" (due to it's similarity to that of the squawking of an angry bird).
These characteristics would only intensify as time went on, especially as the shows in August progressed. Effectively, this ended the period of Elton's live singing career known as the "prime live" era.
Why did this happen? Believe it or not, this was most likely brought on by his recently acquired enthusiasm for smoking pot. Specifically before going onstage.
While it's not the same for everyone, Elton has admitted that the doctor whom he saw in Australia explained to him that the source of his vocal damage through 1986 stemmed from his smoking of pot and singing.
Elton has later said that during this tour he developed a, shall we say, enthusiasm for smoking pot before going onstage, and as a result would perform stoned. He once made a quip that he'd smoke up to 40 spliffs/joints in a day at this time.
Smoking in general is terrible for your voice, but it can be especially terrible when you must try and sing during or afterward. Not only does it irritate your throat and vocal cords terribly as you inhale, but it can cause horrific coughing fits, lead to severe dehydration--and in some cases just a puff can lead to straight up laryngitis. These things are obviously disastrous for any singer.
But what's worse is that trying to sing through irritated vocal cords from pot smoking, which if he is to be believed if something Elton was doing quite regularly on this tour, can lead to many different vocal disorders, specifically vocal fold scarring/trauma. And what can one of the symptoms of vocal fold scarring/trauma be? A loss or change in vocal range/abilities and...a change in vocal timbre.
The pot smoking began on this tour as far as we know, and it honestly makes perfect sense. He had never had issues with his vocal range or his falsetto prior to this tour, but all of a sudden it abruptly gave him significant troubles at the third concert, something that clearly caught him terribly off guard. Not to mention he had sounded more or less the same since 1979/1980, but all of a sudden in a matter of three weeks his voice has suddenly started to become deeper and huskier.
Even if Elton had quit the damaging habits in time for the nodules not to form, this deeper voice would've likely become his permanent sound--but honestly that would end up being the case anyway as his vocal cord surgery pretty much returned his voice to exactly the sound it had at this show, at least initially...more on that possibly later?
At any rate, this concert is a great, fun, high energy, and kickass show with Elton being incredibly high energy thru out, and despite the change in his voice he honestly sounds great for most of it and sings some surprisingly impressive embellishments and high notes. Enjoy!