OTTAWA - Elton John is so many things at once, it was hard to believe that was him last night, right there, on the Scotiabank Place stage, in front of 15,000 fans.

Looking predictably pudgy and puffy, grandly clad in bedazzled black tails, brilliant red shirt, sunglasses, one dangly earring and a full head of artfully bleached hair, John sang his heart out and pounded the ivories to his heart's content on his long-awaited return to the capital.

During a show that ran for well over two hours, John, as he announced early on, "played some old ones, and some new ones," dipping back and forth in the decades between his newest album, Captain & The Kid, and those decades-old, like its prequel, 1975's Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.

John opened with a rock-laden Love Lies Bleeding, thrilling the crowd when he played the opening notes of Bennie and the Jets and sauntered right into the the strident Philadelphia Freedom. Then he broke out that famous occasional falsetto for favourite Goodbye Yellow Brick Road to cheers of joy from the crowd.

John stood up to accept applause between many of the tunes, speaking briefly as he stepped back behind his grand piano, in front of capable five-piece band. Two large screens flanked a spare stage, jazzed up with a light screen.

A single spotlight shone on him while he sang the truly great Tiny Dancer, a frequently-covered tune off 1972's Madman Across the Water.

As famous for his music as he is for everything else, John seems at once outspoken, buffoonish, ego-driven, philanthropic and emotionally troubled. From his battles with drugs, depression and bulimia to outrageous fashion sense, he is, refreshingly, rarely boring.

Though he may have been the biggest superstar in the 1970s, John still barely has to burp to make news. For example, when he went on a filthy tirade against Universal Records music onstage in Long Island this fall it was reported on extensively, up to and including the number of times he said the F-word. Fifteen, apparently.

Whether you think the 59-year-old Reginald Kenneth Dwight is a puffed-up, prone-to-complaining, past-his-prime queen with hair transplants, or a refreshingly honest survivor with a knack for keeping himself ubiquitous, there is no denying his celebrity or ability to please fans, or his musicianship.

With dozens of hits and anthems synonymous with his name, he's still -- as much as anyone who's been making notes for 35-plus years existing in this iTunes generation of ours can -- got it.

It didn't take him long to get political last night either. Introducing Believe, John called it "a love song."

"But it's also a protest song," he said. "About bigotry and hatred and ignorance. Hopefully with the elections in America the other day, we got rid of some of that."