Elton John solo at the Carlson Center! \o/

[layla]

This is the first time he's ever toured in Alaska, and it was FUN! Really, really fun. The Carlson Center, sadly, has the acoustics of a hockey rink -- unsurprising, since that's what it is most of the time -- but it was still a very good show; I loved not just getting to see him perform in person, but the different arrangements of the songs for solo piano without a backup band. And he looked like he was having fun, too.

Any fellow Fairbanks people who were there, if you happened to notice a 6-foot neon "ELTON" sign made of glo-sticks towards the back of the floor seating area (it was sort of hard to miss) -- that was a co-worker of mine waving it around. :D

Comments

[tulleandtiaras.livejournal.com]

Elton John in Fairbanks. I am having trouble wrapping my brain around that. I can imagine it was a wonderful show.

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

I know! It's amazing to me that we actually got a show like that here.

[acoustic-rob.livejournal.com]

I like it when musicians do something like this--rework an entire concert's worth of songs for solo piano/guitar/sousaphone. What songs surprised you by working in this context? Did any of the arrangements fall flat?

from Sophia

[(Anonymous)]

I saw Joe Jackson back in 1984, and he did "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" acoustically, with only violin, piccolo, concertina (or maybe button accordion?) and tambourine for the instrumentation - it was great!

Re: from Sophia

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

Isn't that sort of thing neat? There's just something about live music -- it's not simply seeing the singer in person, it's getting to see and hear them do things with their music that never gets recorded anywhere. I had an absolute blast a couple of years ago when Nanci Griffith did a solo acoustic Fairbanks show in a very small venue, and spent a lot of time between each song talking about how she'd written it and telling little anecdotes about her life.

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

Hmm, good questions -- which I'm probably entirely unqualified to answer, since my musical knowledge is basically limited to "durrrr, I liked that". One that stood out for me, though, was "Philadelphia Freedom" -- both the piano-only rendition (very different from the orchestral recorded version), and the audience reaction, which was awesome. I would love to have a single recording of the piano-only arrangement of that song; I had to do a lot of hunting on Youtube just to find any recorded version at all (http://youtube.com/watch?v=NfGINPFrkB0), though this one doesn't really catch the other half of the equation, which was the fantastic audience energy. As soon as the audience caught onto which song he was playing, they started clapping out the beat and dancing -- and then there was the lightshow, with pulsing graphics and a spotlight playing down across the audience at the "shine on me". It was just a really incredible thing to be part of; I can't remember going to another concert with as much sheer audience enthusiasm as this one had. (Another fun bit -- while we were waiting for the concert to start, I'd been listening to the couple next to me arguing; apparently the boyfriend/husband had been dragged to the concert and was none too happy to be there. After "Philadelphia Freedom", I heard him saying to his wife/girlfriend, "Okay, that was awesome." I grinned. :D )

I think what really impressed me the most about the concert, though, is how much Elton John obviously enjoyed what he was doing -- not being onstage in front of thousands of screaming fans, but just the simple act of playing music. I'm an artist; I recognize that sort of rapture in other people, and you could really see it when he was playing, how lost in the music he was. Ironically, as flamboyant as his stage persona is, watching him perform live I got more the impression of someone who's shy, and who's basically tuning out the crowd and communing with the piano rather than feeding off the audience's reactions. Not that he ignored the crowd -- actually, he was very gracious, even signing autographs for people in the front rows; it's the only time I've ever seen someone famous do that onstage -- and the show itself was very carefully choreographed, but that sense of him as an introverted artist-type is something that really stuck with me, because it's about the last thing I would have expected from someone with the outgoing pop-star persona that he's better known for.