I love Elton John! He's such a legend! And I did love receiving brand new recordings! The day I received this was one of my best days receiving as I got 10 shows! On this day, I got 5 shows from 1984, 3 shows from 1985 and 2 shows from 1986. All of these shows were well documented by myself, Gregsynthwizard and other subscribers over the last few months! The first one I decided to upload was Sheffield 1985 which has decent quality and a Gregsynth remaster (some breakage here and there but very much listenable!) and is 100% complete! 

This is the first full setlist recording of 1985 with Elton and his very large band and as a whole, they sound amazing! All the songs sound fresh, energetic and fantastic with everyone shining onstage. This tour is also considered to be Elton's best vocal tour and this show is a prime example of this statement. Furthermore, I made more findings on this show and I believe this has to go in Elton's top ten shows ever and this is a candidate for the best! Plus I must mention, this is one of the last shows which features Elton's "mixed" voice as he damages his voice on some 1985 shows such as Manchester and 1st Wembley. Basically, the mixed voice is where Elton is able to glide cleanly up to notes and you can hear this clearly on this gig and other gigs where he is in excellent shape (see Stuttgart 1984, Wembley 1984, 12/19/1985)

Onto Elton's vocals : Elton is on fire tonight nailing every single song (YES! EVERY SINGLE SONG! And they will ALL be mentioned, that's how great this show is!) including Tonight where he hits falsetto which he tended to miss more often than not and does attempt the second one but misses it (even on this tour!) One Horse Town where he nails the whole song unlike some of my future uploads but does flub lyrics, Better Off Dead which has an excellent final chorus with unique phrasing, Rocket Man which is similar to Stuttgart plus has a fantastic blues style outro which is very popular with me and Greg and is probably a top 10 version! 

Honky Cat is another prime example of his brilliance as it is the best version ever as Elton doesn't rush phrasing plus hits falsettos near the end of the song, Burn Down The Mission which has unique phrasing plus fun interpretations of the verses from Elton, Someone Saved My Life Tonight which does have phrasing better than every other version however some phrasing doesn't another match particular version so this is the second best version plus has that awesome mixed voice! The Bitch Is Back is also excellent with an aggressive guitar solo, the medley is also very nice and Blue Eyes is very unique, Restless which sounds like a 1984 version, Passengers with randomness in the 2nd octave which is great!

Elton sings a very obnoxious version of Bennie And The Jets with wonderful phrasing plus high notes galore, Sad Songs (Say So Much) with Elton sounding strong, Shoot Down The Moon which features Elton's voice gliding perfectly plus it's the best version ever, This Town which sounds very strong, Nikita where Elton hits an F2 and sounds amazing! The version of the song is a top 5 version ever!

Even though George Michael didn't attend these 1985 shows, Wrap Her Up was excellent with this version being a candidate for best version as Elton sings excellent A4's like 12/14, I'm Still Standing is a prelude to later European versions such as Rotterdam plus features Elton sounding excellent, Your Song which does sadly feature a duet but however, before the duetting starts, Elton sounds great, Candle In The Wind which is a mixture of 1984 plus his new voice which is awesome!

Kiss The Bride deserves a paragraph in itself as this is the best version ever! Elton sings very daringly and is willing to do extremely fun high notes plus the band arrangement owns everything from 1984 plus David Paton's bass playing sounds beautiful and the backing vocalists make the song so much better! All in all, I love this lots! And the final song Can I Get A Witness could also be best version ever with random bluesy high notes near the end combined with obnoxiousness! 

As you can see, I love this show a lot! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Note 1 - Davey Johnstone gets insulted during the band intro!

- Adam, Elton Bootlegs