Elton John raised the roof at Glastonbury last night in what could be the Rocketman singer’s last ever performance, and he was watched by more than 7M viewers on the BBC.
The legendary British singer’s three-hour performance drew a near-50% audience share and becomes one of the most-watched TV shows of the year so far, according to Barb data from overnights.tv, just behind Happy Valley. His performance was by miles the most-watched Glastonbury set across the weekend on the BBC, which shows wall-to-wall coverage of the Worthy Farm fest.
At the festival, early estimates had the performance as one of the most-watched of all time, possibly eclipsing Dolly Parton in 2014 at well over 100,000.
John, who has previously said last night would be his final ever performance, trawled through all the hits across a five-decades-long career including Candle in the Wind, Rocketman and Tiny Dancer. He was joined on stage by singer-songwriter Stephen Sanchez and The Killers’ frontman Brandon Flowers.
John eclipsed Saturday night’s headliner Guns ‘N’ Roses’ ratings with ease, which hit just over 1M, while Arctic Monkeys on Friday saw 1.5M tune in.
The last few days have seen a packed and vibrant Glastonbury as the weather stood firm. The festival, one of the world’s biggest, also featured performances from the likes of Blondie, Lana Del Rey, Cat Stevens and Lewis Capaldi, the latter of whom was watched by 2.2M but struggled with his Tourette’s syndrome on stage as he was forced to cut his set short.
The fest wasn’t shy of controversy either. A screening of Oh, Jeremy Corbyn, The Big Lie was pulled after Jewish groups accused it of peddling Antisemitic conspiracy theories while an artist demanded footage of her performance be removed from the BBC’s platforms after receiving abuse.