Elton John Said a Murderous Look From Keith Richards Scared Him Off a Stage

At a concert in Colorado, The Rolling Stones invited Elton John to join them onstage, a move they soon regretted. John, who was enjoying himself, long overstayed his welcome with the band. He later explained that because he was on cocaine, he thought that the band was happy to have him. Eventually, though, a glare from Keith Richards cut through his haze and sent him rushing off the stage. 

Elton John and Keith Richards have feuded over the years

John and Richards have never been the best of friends. Richards publicly disparaged the other musician in a 1988 interview. Richards didn’t have a problem with him as a person, but he didn’t like his music or public persona.

“Lovely bloke, but posing,” he told Rolling Stone. 

Years later, Richards criticized John for performing “Candle in the Wind” at Princess Diana’s funeral. John originally wrote the song about Marilyn Monroe.

“Yeah, it did jar a bit,” Richards told Entertainment Weekly. “Songs for Dead Blonds. But he was a personal friend, after all. I’d find it difficult to ride on the back of something like that myself, but Reg is showbiz.”

Keith Richards once gave Elton John a withering look onstage

Years before Richards took shots at John in interviews, The Rolling Stones invited him onstage with them. They wanted him to join them for one song, but John had other plans.

“If anything, cocaine gave me too much confidence for my own good,” John wrote in his book, Me, per the Daily Mail. “If I hadn’t been coked out of my head when the Rolling Stones turned up in Colorado and asked me to come onstage with them, I might have just performed ‘Honky Tonk Women,’ waved to the crowd and made my exit.”

Instead, he was enjoying himself so much that he stayed with the band onstage.

“Instead, I decided it was going so well, I’d stay on and jam along to the rest of their set, without first taking the precaution of asking the Stones if they wanted an auxiliary keyboard player,” he wrote. “For a while, I thought Keith Richards kept staring at me because he was awestruck by the brilliance of my improvised contributions to their oeuvre. After a few songs, it finally penetrated my brain that the expression on his face wasn’t really suggestive of profound musical appreciation.”

Once John realized that the expression on Richards’ face was murderous, not mirthful, he got off the stage as quickly as he could.

“I quickly scuttled off, noting as I went that Keith was still staring at me in a manner that suggested we’d be discussing this later, and decided it might be best if I didn’t hang around for the after-show party.”

This wasn’t the only time the ‘Rocket Man’ singer upset another musician during their concert

Several years before this, John caused a far more chaotic scene when he got on stage while Iggy Pop was performing. This time, his appearance was not planned, and he dressed as a gorilla.

“I dressed as a gorilla and went onstage with Iggy Pop, yes,” John told Yahoo. “In Richard’s Club, in Atlanta. I saw him the first night. He was so great; I wanted to go back the second night. I thought, ‘I know what. I’ll dress as a gorilla!’ I jumped onstage — and he freaked out.”

John wasn’t aware that Pop had been high since the night before. He assumed a real gorilla was attacking him.