Sir Elton John kicks off the New Zealand leg of his farewell tour tonight, under the roof at Dunedin's Forsyth Barr Stadium.
It's the first of six shows here on his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, which covers five continents across 300 shows.
Sir Elton has been on the road for half a century, entertaining fans around the world. Helping ensure those shows go as smoothly as possible is his longtime tour manager, DC Parmet.
"I believe that the Dunedin show will be show number 168, so we're a little over halfway. So we've still got a way to go, many people to say goodbye to," Parmet told Newshub.
"I love working for Elton. He's a fantastic boss", said Parmet.
"I love his music. The first album that I ever got was Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, way back in 1973".
Parmet said that Sir Elton takes special interest in the personal lives of his touring crew.
"He knows everybody's names. He knows our spouses names, our kids names, he knows where we live.
"He'll even call me into the dressing room to tell me how bad my favourite baseball team is doing", Parmet said.
Around 35,000 fans are expected for the Dunedin show, where it has been raining heavily.
But the distinctive roof on the southern stadium will ease any headaches for the production team, after last Friday's show in Australia's Yarra Valley had to be abandoned when torrential rain pelted down onto the stage.
"The storm came in so fast and so furious that it shorted out the piano", said Parmet. "And it shorted out the monitor system, which he uses to hear the rest of the band."
Luckily everything was able to be dried out with no permanent damage to the gear.
It's been a huge logistical jigsaw getting all the equipment across the ditch in time, but Parmet insists Kiwi fans will get the full three hour show they had in Aussie.
"[There will be] a lot of hits that you know like Philadelphia Freedom, and there'll be some really deep album tracks. So there's stuff for the casual fan, the fan of his hits, and also the fan that really digs deep into his catalogue."
