The cast of the Broadway musical version of Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous have appeared on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon to perform one of the production's most iconic scenes, the sing-along to Elton John’s classic Tiny Dancer.
The original scene took place on the tour bus used by Stillwater, the fictional band at the heart of the movie. At the beginning of the sequence the musicians aren't speaking to each other, but Tiny Dancer comes on the radio and the tension slowly dissolves as the members join the sing-along.
"It was one of those situations where you just felt it," director Crowe told Rolling Stone in 2020. "It was like a physical thing when they started singing along, and you could feel all the relationships all in that one spot. And Billy is there in the front, just kind of way inside of his head, and they’re singing, and you just can’t help but go: 'This is the movie! This is everything!'"
The Broadway version of Almost Famous stars Chris Wood as Stillwater leader Russell Hammond, Solea Pfeiffer as groupie Penny Laine, and Casey Likes as young Journalist William Miller, a role partially based on Crowe's own experience as a teenage Rolling Stone reporter.
Almost Famous officially opens tonight (November 3) at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on West 45th St, NY.
The show, which originally debuted in San Diego at The Old Globe in 2019, is directed by Jeremy Herrin, with original music by Tom Kitt – who won a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize for the 2008 rock musical Next to Normal – in collaboration with Crowe.
