Here’s some photos of Elton John performing at Buckingham Palace yesterday for Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee concert. I’d say that Elton dressed up mightily for the occasion, but he always looks this sparky and spiffy, right? He’s not exactly a man known for casual wear.

Moving right along, Elton has given an interview to The Guardian where he does a lot of talking about his experience (thus far) with being a parent alongside his partner, David Furnish. Elton seems to have substantially expanded his viewpoint from that point in late 2010 when he and David welcomed little Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John into their lives. To recap, Elton went on tour just one month after the baby was born, which seemed a little odd because, well, he could have afforded to take a little more time off for a new addition to the family, right? Then a story from the Mail revealed that Elton and David had set up Zachary in the apartment next to theirs with two nannies, but it was never revealed whether they’d knocked down a wall to connect the two apartments. In all likelihood, that’s what happened. But whatever the case, Elton seems to have settled into fatherhood quite comfortably, and it seems like he makes a ton of time for Zachary during his time offstage (even though 120 gigs a year, which Elton admits to below, sounds pretty exhausting). Here are some excerpts from The Guardian:

He’s still works a ton: “I still work a hell of a lot – I do 120 shows a year, I’m still recording a lot, I’m writing musicals, blah blah, blah – but I do have a wonderful private life and it’s found its feet.”

Will he slow down as Zachary ages? [T]he thing is, he has never enjoyed his career more. “If I was burnt out and just doing it to pay the bills, then it would be different – I would be very resentful of it – but this is the time when I’m actually enjoying it the most. I know when I come offstage, I’m going to be happy. I can go to bed. I don’t have to stay up all night doing drugs. I’m going to get up in the morning and see my little boy and see my partner. We have a life. You think, ‘How the f**k do you do it?’, but actually, you do. You just manage to do it.”

He’s a proud papa: [P]erhaps uniquely in the world of rock’n’roll, Elton John’s pre-gig preparations involve bathing an occasionally recalcitrant 15-month-old boy and reading him a bedtime story – and showing me photos on his iPad. There’s Zachary on his lap at the piano, Zachary kissing his housekeeper’s daughter (“He’s so straight”), Zachary playing football.

He worries about spoiling Zachary: It’s not him and David who are the problem, he says, so much as a global army of well-wishers. “You know what? At Christmas we bought him a swing for the garden and a little slide, and this was his Christmas present and his birthday present from us. But he had so many presents from other people throughout the world, which is touching, but we actually found it obscene. I said, ‘This is shocking. It’s four hours we’ve been opening these presents.'” They ended up giving most of the stuff to charity, and are trying to encourage people to donate money to an orphanage in Lesotho instead. “We had nine strollers given to us,” he sighs. “It’s crazy.”

He wants Zachary to have a sibling: “I think it’s difficult to be an only child, and to be an only child of someone famous. I want him to have a sibling so he has someone to be with. I know when he goes to school there’s going to be an awful lot of pressure, and I know he’s going to have people saying, ‘You don’t have a mummy.’ It’s going to happen. We talked about it before we had him. I want someone to be at his side and back him up. We shall see.”

[From The Guardian]

It sounds a little excessive for Elton to complain about all of the gifts that people around the world have sent to little Zachary, but at least he gave all the extra stuff to charity. I wonder if these gifts were sent by Elton’s fans or if they were actually from his celebrity friends — because I’ve never dreamed of sending a stroller (or anything else) to my favorite singer or celebrity, but I guess it’s possible that Elton’s got some really rich fans who want Zachary to have the very best.

I do wish Elton and David luck in adding to their family. While I’ve never really had the urge to have a second child myself, I see Elton’s point about how being an only child might be especially difficult when one has a famous parent. No matter how hard Elton tries not to spoil Zachary, there will always be the bubble of fame to cope with, and a sibling might cushion the inevitable need to step outside that bubble at some point.

Elton John and David Furnish shown with son Zachary in Honolulu on 1/6/2012; Elton and David shown attending the Elton John AIDS Foundation Oscars viewing party on 2/26/2012; photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and WENN