Elton John
Live at The Olympiahalle
Munich, Germany - March 30, 1986

In terms of shows that are important in the discussion of Elton's vocal decline in 1986, there's no show quite as fascinating as this show from the European leg.

We've established that Elton likely first experienced major vocal difficulty on the third show of the tour on March 4 in Barcelona. He couldn't navigate his falsetto properly, broke on certain notes and removed others completely. Overall something was off and he definitely took notice, it seemingly spooked him enough to remove several falsetto bits from the songs in his set.

We've noted this many times now, but Elton had begun a major pot smoking habit at the time that would lead to the development of vocal nodules just 6 months later. Although the worst of the damage was yet to come, this impact to his falsetto was the first of what was to become several steps in the downfall of his voice, with the second coming in mid-April when he experienced a change in his vocal timbre, causing his voice to deepen and become huskier.

Now after Barcelona, the following recorded shows were actually all mostly strong shows with only a small handful of falsettos removed. Everything he does sing sounds really great and strong, and you'd have never guessed there were further troubles to come...

That is, until we get to Munich.

This show is truly an enigma, a one-off, a head scratching mystery in the world of Elton John concert recordings. If it had come from any other tour it would be the most perplexing concert tape in Elton history.

Even when sick or vocally tired, Elton never really "held back" in his concerts. He always sang with whatever voice he had at full force, and still sang just about every note in every song to the best of his ability, usually with success.

Elton holds back BIG TIME in this tape. He sings almost everything with complete restraint, he never quite goes all out--no high energy over driven singing, no true embellishing--he sings everything very almost melodically as if all the songs were some kind of ballad. He does sort of cut loose every now and then, but for the most part he is shockingly reserved.

And his vocal timbre is really, really thin. Part of this is a result of his holding back, but even then it still seems noticeably thinner. His voice also sounds incredibly strained, there's plenty of moments where his voice gets really raspy or scratchy, lots of angry birding (but in this case it sounds a lot more like an accident or uncontrolled mishap than it does later on), and in some difficult songs he really struggles and can go a bit flat at times.

And yet, he still goes for a majority of the notes in songs, and you do get a few impressive high notes here and there. But these are moments surrounded by this incredibly hesitant and unsure singing.
If you're familiar with his 1979 tour where it was just him and the piano primarily, he sang much softer on that tour--and he very much does that kind of thing here, but again with a much thinner and strained sound.

So...what happened? This time around, it's a bit harder to say. We don't have a recording of the night before. There's a couple possible theories, but to be honest the likely answer is some mix of those theories:
It seems most likely that he may have gone completely overboard on his singing the night before--and while this would have never been a problem in the past with his amazing technique and stamina--the pot smoking habit was causing impacted vocal cords making them more frail--therefore his voice was left incredibly strained/weakened the next day, which explains the strained timbre, and as a result his feeling he needed to hold back and play it very "safe".

I know it's easy to say "oH wElL eLtOn WaS PrObAbLy jUsT sIcK, nO bIg MyStErY hErEEEEEE blahblahblah", but you have to look at these things big picture across his entire career. We have recordings from when he was ill. We have recordings from when he was vocally exhausted. We have all of these things.

This is so different, and so completely unlike any of those situations and unlike ANY other existing concert. And you have to remember the context: his voice was already well into the stages of vocal decline which would, in just a couple weeks, lead to vocal scarring/trauma that would mark the end of his classic sound and give us the husky/more baritonal Elton--and by September he'd have nodules.

And whats more confusing? The very next show in Berlin, he was 100% back to normal, over doing and over singing everything as if nothing had happened on this night in Munich.

We may never know for sure without a recording of 3/29 in Munich, but it's very likely that--if he did strain his voice badly from over singing after smoking pot on 3/29--that this 3/30 show could be the turning point for what was to come. But as it stands, it's a confusing, mysterious, and fascinating show worth a listen.

Enjoy! Leave your thoughts/theories in the comments below!