Elton casts off the baggage

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Last night, for more than two hours, he made considerable sense. Despite the potential distraction of a balcony packed with the fairly famous, he played hits aplenty; much of his current Songs From the West Coast album and a smattering of elderly tracks, such as Harmony, the opening Funeral For a Friend and Holiday Inn, which featured guitarist Davey Johnstone - disturbingly resembling Garth from Wayne's World - on folksy mandolin.

This pair of intimate Empire shows are for his Aids Foundation charity and John's mood was as jocose as a man with the Number One single should be. He dedicated Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word to his collaborators Blue.

He was cheerfully foulmouthed in berating Presidents Reagan and DubyaBush, he playfully altered the lyrics to Crocodile Rock ("When I was young, my todger had so much fun") and the instant a song finished, he was off his stool, bowing, pointing and clapping.

Songs from the West Coast is surely the key to his resurgence. Original Sin, The Wasteland and Ballad of the Boy in the Red Shoes are the equal of John's early-Seventies peak, when he managed seven successive US Number One albums. For the first time since 1988's Reg Strikes Back he is not a nostalgia act.

In turn, his renewed impetus gave fresh life to old material. Bennie and the Jets was reinvented as an epic; Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting and Pinball Wizard were almost punkish; Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me has seemingly become his My Way and the closing Your Song remained as impossibly romantic as ever. Truly a national treasure.

Tonight (Tuesday 17th) only. Box office: 0870 771 2000.

Elton John & Ray Cooper