When the audience threw a hashish pipe at Elton John

In the pages of his new autobiography, “Farewell Yellow Brick Road: Memories of My Life on Tour”, Elton John returns to tell new anecdotes, including the time during a concert his band thought he had been shot after a member from the audience threw a hashish pipe at him.

Recalling the accident, the musician recounted how he was injured during a show in Greensboro, North Carolina, in November 1974. According to his new book, the voice of “Tiny Dancer” was left unconscious during a performance after the spectator’s gesture, which led the musicians on stage to wonder if John had been shot.

“Fans would often throw things on stage when I played, but they were usually pretty soft things. Not in Greensboro,” Elton John recalled: “As we launched into a version of ‘Burn Down the Mission,’ about halfway through the set, someone from the crowd threw a metal hash pipe toward the stage.

“I didn’t expect it,” added the artist: “The silver pipe crashed into my temple, making me bleed, and I passed out completely. The band kept playing because it took them a second to realize what had happened. They told me later that they thought I had been hit because they saw the blood running down my face.”

Elton John also said his bodyguard Jim Morris intervened to help the musician off stage, before he was bandaged by a paramedic while still wearing his elaborate stage costume: “There were feathers everywhere.”