Elton John - Someone Saved My Life Tonight
Live at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, PA
September 8, 1986
It has been brought to my attention that my previous upload of a clip from this concert may not have accurately represented how truly bad Elton's vocal condition was at this concert. Thinking back on the show, I realized there was no song to better illustrate how bad this show was then his attempt to make it through the insanely vocally demanding "Someone Saved My Life Tonight". So...here it is!
So Elton John began the American leg of the "Ice On Fire" tour on August 17, 1986. The tour was meant to begin on August 15, but two shows had to be cancelled due to Elton suffering from "laryngitis".
The reality of this 'laryngitis' situation was Elton had been dealing with vocal damage in some capacity since April 1986, but by the time the tour was meant to begin in August the vocal issues reached a point where he was unknowingly developing nodules on his vocal cords. These nodules would've been fully formed by, and diagnosed right after, this performance (however they did not go public with this knowledge until shortly before the end of his Australian tour in November when surgery had become unavoidable).
This was the 17th show of the tour, and as is the nature of vocal nodules in various development stages, he had been extremely inconsistent the entire tour so far with no truly "normal" night for his voice--and whenever he did a run of consecutive shows his voice would get worse as each night progressed, not improving in any way until after he'd had a night off.
The night of September 8, 1986 however was the night that the problem couldn't be ignored. Granted he was three weeks into a tour and hadn't operated at 100% even once--but this evening his voice had become so hoarse and raw he had difficulty singing a majority of the set. It got to the point where he apologized several times through out the evening for the state of his voice, admitting he had yet to be 100% on the tour and didn't realize how bad it had gotten, and he even offered to give the audience their money back as he felt he had cheated them due to his voice being in such bad shape.
Following this show he'd begin a four-concert stint at Madison Square Garden beginning on the 11th of September, but before this he would visit a doctor and get the diagnosis...but continue the tour anyway with his voice gradually getting worse and more inconsistent as time went on.
Here's a clip from what is one of the three most infamously bad tapes for Elton's voice, and likely the show that finally scared him into seeing a doctor. Enjoy!