Hi!
The Amherst show was AMAZING! I agree with John Baril that it felt a bit that Elton was just doing his job BUT I was in the 5th row in the center (a friend of mine works at a radio station) and I was VERY close to The Man, so I saw his reactions, enthusiasm, energy, drive, etc. It was GREAT to see!
I also agree that the speakers sucked big time, but hey, I was just happy to see him live. By now, I'm sure you've all heard that he's doing a 3 hour show with about 26 songs straight (i.e., NO intermission or even a break to change!).
Elton sounded GREAT, GBYBR sounded awesome and he hit the high notes perfectly. The BIG gem of the evening (in my humble view) was Grey Seal. It was amazing hearing it live. And I didn't particularly like If The River Can Bend on the album, but he can make it ROCK live!!!!
John Baril wrote:
There must have been either an unruly fan or a jerk-moe security guard right at the stage, coz Elton said "Why don't you bugger off, you in the white shirt, somebody get rid of him, he's starting to piss me off."
From my vantage point, I saw the 2 guys that Elton meant, but since we were all facing the stage, I didn't see what they were doing. Elton did speak directly to them, saying something like "bugger off, youre pissing me off" and we in the front section cheered. It was fun seeing him saying what he thinks
One tricky female fan got onto the stage and ran over to Elton while he was playing and grabbed on to him (it looked like from my vantage point) until an events guard nabbed her and pushed her back down.
Yes! From my vantage point (which was right in front of EJ, 5 rows back) was that the girl ran up with arms outstretched and got her hands ON THE PIANO. This was during the second verse of Saturday and when she got pulled away by the bodyguard she grabbed onto the piano and lifted the board up a bit (the small part that flips around to become the part that can hold sheet music) KNOCKING the microphone back WHILE ELTON WAS SINGING. So we missed about a line of Saturday, but the most amazing thing was, HE DIDN'T BLINK and kept on going!!! I was extremely impressed with that. The girl was then set down into the audience again by the bodyguard.
I must say that it was an eventful concert!
-Rich Kilarski emrys@bu.edu
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