Concerts - Elton John

	Sign In Sign-Up

If there was such an award as "Greatest Stamina In Entertainment", then without a doubt only one person would be worth it, Sir Elton John.

He performed one of the, if not THE best concert we've ever seen, in the town center of Leoben which lays in the greener parts of Austria, on June 17^th 2000. We got there by bus and the journey was so pleasant that the excitement of seeing one of the world's greatest entertainers in music business for the first time grew even more. Neither could we help but notice on our arrival there that a lot of people were also gathering at windows and even sitting on roof tops to get a glimpse of the man.

After nearly 2 hours' waiting there was an uproar in the strong crowd of roughly 10.000 and Sir Elton appeared on the relatively humble stage set. The latter was "merely" a decoration of Versace design. Elton presented himself in full view by standing up on his piano chair, wearing slightly pink-stained glasses and a matching eye-catching pink suit, the appropriate word 'Medusa' written in big silver letters on his back. His first words: "Tonight it's just me, the piano and you."
He set off with "Your Song", the song which launched his career in pop music in 1970. After this, he welcomed the audience with a few words and told us a little about the material he would perform, some of it well-known and some not. However, his modesty proofed out of place, as there was hardly any tune his fans didn't recognise. The most popular ones were: Candle In The Wind, Nikita, Daniel, Rocket Man, Philadelphia Freedom, Sacrifice, Don't Let The Sun... [where was George? LOL], Blue Eyes, Sorry Seems To Be...., I Guess That's Why They Call .... and many more.
One of the highlights of the show was a song he dedicated to a dear friend of his, yet another great legend in music, John Lennon. [We've tried in vain to find out its title, caus we can't remember from the concert. Think, though, it's simply called "Johnny".] On the huge screen appeared an accompanying, gripping video, containing an amazing amount of mostly yet unpublished photo and video material of Lennon, ranging from baby age right up to his death. We got the impression we weren't the only ones in the crowd holding our breath during that part of the gig.
Elton John entertained his fans not only with his brilliant music but also with his excellent piano skills, his fingers almost fusing with the keys of the instrument at some points.
One of a few facts* that didn't go unnoticed was that Sir Elton seemed to give his glamorous and outragious dressing style a miss, as he kept his suit on right til the end. No funky hats, no crazily framed sets of glasses either. Nonetheless, it's needless to say he had the audience at his feet, craving for more. And we weren't disappointed. Elton didn't need much begging at the end of his marvellous show to come back on stage. He sang what most people were still hoping to hear:

Circle Of Life from the world-famous 1994 Disney animation The Lion King, of course not leaving out the sweet and touching video clips from the film,

Benny And The Jets with a mingled-in classic rendition of Glenn Miller's In The Mood and

Crocodile Rock.

We'd go as far as to say that, at the latter, for once the performer himself was left startled at first but quickly recovered to enjoy his fans loudly filling in the meaningful "Laaaaaaaa.... Lalalalalaaaaaa" in between chorouses all the way through the song.
Unfortunately all good must come to an end and so did this wonderful evening. To our surprise, when checking the time, we found Elton John had actually performed 3 hours NON-STOP - an amazing fact, considering that that man had to cancel a few tour dates not too long ago to undergo heart surgery after serious health problems. A quote from his own tour programme sums up what a great artist he is and also leaves people wondering about some of his younger colleagues' live performances in music business:
"After you've had a career for thirty years, you need to go back and be scared once in a while. With a band you're surrounded by people who can support and cover up for you. It's very rewarding to do shows on your own - it gives you a chance to talk to the audience."

On a lighter note we thought it worth mentioning that the same evening, before entering the stage, Elton John received yet another "trophy" in his music history. He was presented with a golden disc by Universal Records, Austria, for his masterpiece "Aida".

* The other was that, as a huge football fan himself, Elton couldn't help but have a) a telly in his dressing room and b) a crew member come up on stage in between songs to keep him informed about the latest results of the Euro2000.