Elton John Concert Confirmed

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The latest addition to pop icon Elton John's world tour is Costa Rica's Ricardo Saprissa Stadium in Tibas on Feb. 3. His  tour will take him from Australia and Malaysia, through Las Vegas and on to this country and Peru.

Sir Elton (he was knighted (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth in 1998) has risen in the past four decades to become one of the most successful performers of all time with record sales totaling more than 250 million. Tickets go on sale Thursday through www.specialtickets.net or at Instrumentos Bansbach, Servimas or at Barberia.

In fact his  "Candle in the Wind," set a Billboard record for the highest selling (33 million copies) single in history. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him as number 49 in its top 100 greatest artists of all time.

He has collected awards throughout his career both for performing and songwriting: six Grammys, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Tony on Broadway. Billboard, the entertainment the trade paper, voted him top solo performer in its list of 100 all-time great artists, and third overall behind The Beatles and Madonna.

He has been a leader since the 1980s in the fight against AIDS and in 1992 founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation , which has collected more than $200 million for that cause. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

The bespectacled performer might look like the banker his father, an RAF flight lieutenant, wanted him to be if it were not for his eccentric, colorful costumes. John was later to say that his flamboyant costumes and stage behavior was expressing rebellion against his suffocating childhood.

Born Reginald Kenneth Dwight in 1947 and raised in a Middlesex town town and his upbringing was in many ways unremarkable. But his life changed with his first contact with rock and roll in 1956 when his mother brought home records by Elvis Presley and by Bill Haley and His Comets.

The piano is the signature of the performer and John was introduced to the instrument at age three and within a year was picking out tunes by ear. At age seven, he was packed off by his mother for formal lessons.