The steward incurred Elton's wrath for trying to stop people with cheaper tickets blocking the view of concert-goers at the front who had paid more. But sorry turned out not to be the hardest word, with Elton later getting her on stage and apologising.

Stewards at the stadium, which is the home of Gloucester Rugby, were faced with the problem of some people moving to the front and blocking the view of others at the gig, which was supposed to be seated.

The lack of crowd control has been criticised by fans, but promoter Marshall Arts, which was responsible for the stewarding, refused to comment about it.

During the concert, Elton told the stewards to "lighten up".
He told them: "These people have come here to hear music so if they want to put their hands in the air, let them." In an expletive-laden rant, Elton went to say it was "not China" and he picked out a female steward, telling her: "You put a uniform on and you think you're Hitler - well you're not."



Moments later the woman could be seen on the big screen walking away from the stage area, while people cheered Elton's outburst. Steven Ward, from Tewkesbury, who attended the event, said: "This [concert] was seated, there were disabled people who were sat on our aisle who couldn't see, obviously they couldn't stand up to see the stage. There were people fighting to get a view of what they were trying to look at and, for some reason, the stewards brought out barriers to try and stop people, but that made them worse because they congregated by the barrier."



Gloucester Rugby's commercial manager, Mike Turner, said: "The Elton John concert is a stadium hire so Elton brings on his own stewards. Our stewards man the corporate areas and everything else is manned by the production company Elton uses. The stewards did their best to bring the concert back to how it should be."

A spokesman for Marshall Arts said the concert had been a great success but she would not comment on any aspect of the stewarding, which she said was subcontracted to another company.