Brandi Carlile Gives a Rocket Boost to Elton John’s Oscar-Viewing AIDS Benefit
variety.comChris Willman Music WriterAt Elton John’s 30th annual viewing party to benefit his AIDS Foundation, there was little danger of the crowd not sticking around after the Oscars were over, with Brandi Carlile and her full band doing an hour-long set to cap off the night. “It ain’t a mini-set,” Carlile said on the red carpet. “We’re going all the way.
There will be headbanging.” And there was, with the singer-songwriter introducing a surprisingly hard-rocking, hair-tossing version of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” into her performance, along with inviting singer Jake Wesley Rogers onto her stage for a duet of the absentee host’s “Rocket Man.”“It’s been a long night, but nobody has punched anybody up on stage,” said Carlile, in one of many quips made about the Will Smith slap that served as her opening act.
Later she joked that playing inside the giant pink tent again built for the gala in West Hollywood Park was like “performing inside a giant vagina.” On the red carpet, Carlile reminded Variety that, in her 2021 memoir, she wrote about how, as a kid, she learned of Elton as an AIDS activist first and musician second. “You’ve read ‘Broken Horses,’ so you know what this means to me.
It’s insane. I came to Elton John via this foundation before I ever heard him sing a note. And that’s not altruistic idealism — that’s a real thing — and it was a turning point in my life.
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