Elton John and Brandi Carlile played a one-off show in London last night (March 26) and broke out both familiar favourites and some brand-new material. Find out more below.

The event took place at the prestigious Palladium venue as part of An Evening With Elton John and Brandi Carlile – a special show that will be shown on CBS, Paramount+ and ITV at a later date.

It comes as the two of them are gearing up to share their collaborative album ‘Who Believes In Angels?’ on April 4. It features contributions from Andrew Watt and John’s longtime songwriting partner Bernie Taupin, and has so far been previewed with the title track, the 2025 Oscar-nominated song ‘Never Too Late’, and the LGBTQ+ anthem ‘Swing For The Fences’.

The night kicked off with a Q&A session with actor Dan Levy (Schitt’s Creek) and included a discussion about the inspiration behind the song ‘Swing For The Fences’ – with the two explaining that they wanted to help inspire members of the LGBTQIA community to feel empowered and be unapologetically themselves.

They also shed light on how they first met, with Brandi Carlile explaining that she wrote a letter to “her hero” Sir Elton years ago, and he got back in touch because he was already familiar with her music, and wanted to help use his platform to share her talent.

He elaborated, explaining how he wants to continue championing new talent – naming Chappell Roan, Olivia Dean and Lola Young as personal favourites – and one section saw famous faces including Dua Lipa, Chappell Roan, Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith pay tribute to them both in a series of video messages.

Other discussion included Sir Elton revealing that he owns “somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000” pairs of sunglasses, how he and Carlile “forgot” the cameras were there in the album’s new ‘Making Of’ film, Dan Levy being named after the Elton John hit ‘Daniel’, and how Sir Elton’s last time at the London venue was for a Royal Variety Show in the ‘70s, where he was blown away by Liberace’s outfit made out of “lightbulbs”.

Famous faces in the crowd included Rolling Stones icon Ronnie Wood, actor Lily James, comedians David Walliams and Matt Lucas, singer-songwriter Sam Fender, Aquaman star Jason Momoa and director and actor Sacha Baron Cohen.

As for the show, the duo were joined by Chad Smith on drums (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Andrew Watt (producer) as musical director and guitarist, The Hanseroth Twins on guitar and bass, Josh Klinghoffer (Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beck) on keys.

They kicked off with the album’s title track, before breaking out the live debut of ‘Swing For The Fences’ and currently-unreleased songs ‘Little Richard’s Bible’ and ‘You Without Me’. Brandi Carlile then played her songs ‘The Joke’ and ‘The Story’, while Sir Elton broke out classics like ‘Tiny Dancer’, ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’, ‘I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues’, ‘Your Song’, ‘Bennie And The Jets’ and ‘I’m Still Standing’.

Other highlights included a cover of Patsy Cline’s hit ‘Crazy’, which was followed by a rendition of Jim Reeves’ ‘He’ll Have To Go’.

The footage is due to air on the CBS network on April 6. It will also be shown on Paramount+ at a later date, and on ITV1 and ITVX on April 19. Find the full setlist and more images from the show below.

The Elton John and Brandi Carlile setlist was:

‘Who Believes In Angels?’
‘Swing For The Fences’ (Live debut)
‘Little Richard’s Bible’ (Live debut)
‘The Joke’ (Brandi Carlile)
‘You Without Me’ (Live debut)
‘I Need You to Turn To’
‘Tiny Dancer’
‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’
‘I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues’
‘Crazy’ (Patsy Cline cover)
‘He’ll Have to Go ‘(Jim Reeves cover)
‘Your Song’
‘The Story’ (Brandi Carlile)
‘Bennie and the Jets’
‘I’m Still Standing’

In other Elton John news, the iconic musician recently revealed that a new song about mortality made him “break down” and reflect on how much time he “has left”. He made the comments in a new episode of the Smartless podcast, and revealed that the song in question is set to appear at the very end of the new album with Carlile.

“When you get to my age, which is near 100, you think, ‘How much time have I got left?’. You’ve got children, you’ve got a wonderful husband, you just think about mortality. And so when I got to the chorus, I just broke down for 45 minutes – and it’s all on film.”

Before then, Carlile revealed earlier this year that the ‘Rocketman’ hitmaker smashed his iPad and told her to “fuck off” during the making of their album.