Elton John announced six years ago that he would retire from touring with his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour.” A September 2018 show at Hartford’s XL Center was one of the first stops on that massive tour, which lasted for five years (with a nearly two year hiatus due to the COVID pandemic) and ended in Sweden in July of last year. But Sir Elton leaving the road does not mean that you can no longer find bespectacled men in colorful outfits singing about crocodiles, jets, rockets, candles and Saturday nights.
That final world tour seemed to trigger a new wave of Elton John tribute acts. Already this year, Connecticut clubs and theaters have hosted Captain Fantastic at Mohegan Sun, Yellow Brick Road at the Shubert Theatre, the Early Elton Trio at Infinity Music Hall and “Elton Undressed” at the Garde Arts Center in New London. Now comes Tom Cridland with Tom’s Elton Tribute , for an outdoor show at Simsbury Meadows Performing Arts Center on Aug.
21. Cridland, also known as “Sir El tom John,” is easily distinguished from most of the other Eltons out there. For one thing, he’s actually British.
For another, he’s in his early 30s, on the young side for a 1970s tribute act. He’s also friends with one of Elton John’s longest serving bandmates, Nigel Olsson. Cridland has only been doing Tom’s Elton Tribute for a few years.
“I only started playing music when I stopped drinking,” he said. “It’s not like I was in the industry before. It’s not a pre-planned thing.
“My 20s got out of hand,” he explained. “I needed to replace alcohol with doing something else.” He chose music, joking that he “replaced one addiction with another.
” At 33 years old, Cridland is the age Elton John was when he released “21 at 33” in 1980 and 10 years younger than when the artist became sober in 1990. Besides being Eltom John, Cridland is known in the men’s fashion industry for his Tom Cridland Clothing line, which he started in 2014. “One of our first clients was Nigel Olsson,” he said.
The drummer for the real Elton John’s band, who has done over 2,000 live shows with John starting in the early ‘70s and played on such classic albums as “Honky Chateau,” “Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and “Caribou,” became fast friends with Cridland and has been supportive of his musical endeavors. Last month, when Tom’s Elton Tribute played the Troubadour club in Los Angeles — site of Elton John’s career-making U.S.
debut in 1970 — Olsson came onstage to join in on an encore. “Tom’s Elton John Tribute” is one of two musical projects that captivated Cridland around the same time. Shortly before learning to play piano in the Elton mode, Cridland began working with the ‘70s soul band The Stylistics as both a band member and an opening act in 2019.
He’s currently producing a new album for the band, whose classic hits include “Betcha by Golly, Wow” and “You Make Me Feel Brand New.” Cridland also hosts a podcast, “The Greatest Music of All Time.” In the course of over 400 episodes, he’s talked to everyone from Elton John guitarist Davey Johnstone to dancehall artist Shaggy and hip-hop poet/podcaster Scroobius Pip, plus of course Olsson and The Stylistics.
Cridland has had one brief encounter with Sir Elton, at an AIDS Foundation Oscars party last year. Cridland was able to thank the superstar for inspiring his own sobriety. He didn’t mention his tribute act.
Becoming a performing musician himself was a natural extension of Cridland’s longtime love of pop music. “I grew up on The Beatles,” he recalled, “then I got into ‘70s melodic pop. That is my taste.
I like the old school sound. I like real instruments. “I learned the drums very quickly in order to play with The Stylistics.
Then I then decided during COVID to learn Elton John’s piano style,” Cridland said. For Tom’s Elton Tribute, Cridland makes a careful study of whatever Elton John songs he chooses to play, listening to bootlegs and alternate takes until he finds the right elements for how he needs to present it in concert. “For each line of each song I can tell you four different ways Elton John has done it,” he said.
“I stay clear of the pastiche stuff,” Cridland said. “I stay clear of the cheesy stuff. I always play deep cuts, like ‘Beautiful Friend’ or ‘Love Lies Bleeding.
'” As for the elaborate stage costumes associated with Elton John in his heyday, Cridland dresses colorfully and is capable of a costume change during a show, but is just as likely to use that time “to squeeze in an extra song.” Tom’s Elton Tribute is “not a theatrical show” in the special effects or costume design sense, he said, describing it more as a faithful live recreation of the music. The current tour of Tom’s Elton Tribute began in March and will continue until February 2025 — a full year on the road, not just in the U.
S. but in Brazil and the UK. That’s in the true spirit of classic Elton John, endlessly on the road, yellow brick or otherwise.
Tom’s Elton Tribute plays Aug. 21 at 6 p.m.
at the Simsbury Meadows Performing Arts Center, 22 Iron Horse Blvd., Simsbury. $17.
85 lawn, $28.52 seated, $193 table of eight. simsburymeadows.
org ..
