I made the 3 hr. trek to Charleston, WV for the concert Friday night and it was definitely worth the trip.
Elton John hadn't been there in 25 years, so his coming was a major event in town. I was watching the news in my hotel room (conveniently located right across the street from the venue) and they kept breaking in with live reports from the airport, covering his plane landing, his getting into the limo, etc. there was coverage at the Charleston Civic Center as well.
The show was sold out, the place holds 12,500, a lot smaller than I thought it would be. They said on the news that 20 tickets had come available, something about them being tickets that weren't picked up. The shame of it is, there were 2 seats right next to me that were empty, probably some scalper had those tix or something. I hate to see that when there are people that wanted to go and couldn't get a seat.
Anyway, the crowd just went nuts when he came out, cheering, clapping stomping their feet. Of course it didn't stop there, this continued several times throughout the show. Particularly after Philadelphia Freedom and in between encores. I thought the whole place was going to shake apart. When he came out for the encore, EJ said this crowd was the loudest one yet. He wasn't kidding, I tell you, by the noise you would have thought there were 30,000+ people there. It was nice to see a crowd so appreciative. I think the crowds get a little apathetic at the places he goes to often.
Now for the good stuff. The piano playing was terrific, EJ really went nuts on the keyboard, a lot of standout piano licks. Honky Cat, Take Me To the Pilot, Bennie, the usual suspects were real standouts piano-wise. He played a good chunk of the Bennie solo laying underneath the piano. EJ was in terrific voice, except by the end he was a little hoarse.
The band was good, but I did miss Ray Cooper. Wasn't real thrilled with the new percussionist, but after Ray, I mean who could compare. I really didn't care for Billy Trudell's backing vocals, either. He was off-key a couple of times. He was effective on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, however. I didn't know how I was going to like that, being that EJ doesn't do the high parts anymore, but it sounded really good.
The set list was pretty much the same as the other shows' lists that I've seen posted, except that he didn't do Long Way From Happiness (bummer, because I like that one live) and he added The Bitch Is Back to the encore. Instead of We All Fall In Love Sometimes & Curtains being the last encore, it was the next to last. Sand And Water and Your Song ended the show. I liked Sand And Water, it's a nice song, I'd like to see EJ record that one.
I thought the overall sound of the show could have been better. EJ's voice came through just fine and so did the piano for the most part, but the rest of the instruments seemed to mushed together. It was almost like the sound levels were too high given the size of the venue. I don't know, maybe less speakers or something would have helped. Or it could have just been where I was sitting - opposite end of the arena, first level.
I won't say the show was better than the '95 shows, those would be tough to top, paticularly the great piano trick that tour, but this was a good solid show. I've never personally seen EJ give a bad performance, that was my 16th show, so kinda gets tough to rank them anymore.
Darla
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