Hold me closer, Tiny Dancer

Last night was my third time seeing Elton John in concert. The first was the venue formerly known as Great Woods in... Mansfield?... MA in '95ish with my family, the second in Albany (with Billy Joel) at the Pepsi Center (where he had to tape up his Diet Coke) in 2003 with Mike and Alita, and this '06 edition was at Nassau Coliseum in NY (where the Islanders play hockey) with Mike, Kristin and our invisible friend.

We didn't exactly have front row seats, but that doesn't really matter too much at a concert because you go for the music anyways, right? Elton, at 58, doesn't really venture beyond the confines of his piano these days anyways, other than to wave and salute the crowd between songs. Actually, the funny thing is that the only other time I went to this venue (With Mike, Jeff and Jen for a Devils/Islanders game) we were in the very back row against the wall of the uppermost level. When we arrived last night, we took bets on how close row O was to the back wall - it was 4 rows from the top, which was pretty exciting until we realized they didn't sell the top three rows because the veiw was too obstructed.

As for the concert itself, it was - of course - an enjoyable evening. I don't want you to think I have any negative thoughts about going, because I don't, but I'm afraid I would have to rank it third out of the three times I've seen Sir Elton. It's simply a function of age and eroding skills (voice, certainly not piano) and energy, really, but that being said it was still a good concert. EJ played for a little over two hours straight, 23 songs according to Mike's current list, unless we uncover any more that he forgot. For the most part, he played a lot of his old hits, songs that everyone knows. Mike and I both would love for him to play some slightly more random songs since we know a little more about his entire body of work than the most average of fans, but that's hard to expect of him or any group putting on a concert, obviously. Surprisingly, he only played three songs off of his new CD, and five post 1995 songs. Personally, I like hearing his newer songs in concert because his voice just can't pull off some of the older songs anymore, whereas the newer songs are (obviously) tailored to his current vocal range. Case in point: Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding. The Funeral for a Friend instrumental sounds fantastic in concert, but unfortunately he just can't pull off Love Lies Bleeding that great anymore.

The one little golden nugget out of the entire concert that I enjoyed was when he played "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" - a song off of Honky Chateau from the early 70's. Relatively speaking, this was our random song of the night, because if I had to guess most of you probably don't know that song. If I said "Crocodile Rock" or "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" you would know what I was talking about. Anyways, this is one of my favorite songs from that time period, for one it is not played into the ground like the other hits and it is also just a wonderful song. As a bonus, this is one of those songs that still fits perfectly in Elton's range, so it sounded really good. I was very pleasantly surprised. Other highlights included "Take me to the Pilot" because he started it off with a neat instrumental (he's still an amazing piano player, I will say that much), and "Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word" - one of my favorites from the late 70's that sounded surprisingly good without him going off and hitting all the high notes.

Two other completely random notes associated with the night:
1) He didn't play an encore. How weird is that? He played "Your Song" and then walked off, and we were sitting there contemplating what he was going to finish up with --- and then the lights came on. I was completely unprepared for the concert to be over. It's the equivalent of a football team making a late game push to tie the score and taking an offensive penalty with less than ten seconds left, which by rule runs off the rest of the clock and all of a sudden your team doesn't have one last gasp play. It took me a few moments to recover.

2) Scalpers at a concert? I guess it makes sense... it's an event, there are tickets. But it just struck me as odd. I get sporting events, but something like an Elton John concert seems like something you would go to with a ticket already in hand, not just show up at and say "I hope someone is scalping tickets to this event." Anyways, Mike got half price on an extra ticket, so he didn't have to completely eat it. I don't think it got sold though, because no random dude showed up to replace the imaginary friend. Guess that guy should stick to Islanders games. Oh wait, they play hockey, which means there's very little chance the game is sold out to begin with. Silly me.

All in all, a good concert!