On April 17, I attended the annual Rainforest Benefit at Carnegie Hall in New York City. What a wonderful night it was. My only complaint about that night is that the show was extremely short, timewise. The performers, this year, were Sting, Elton, Don Henly, Billy Joel, Charles Aznavour, Tony Bennett, James Taylor, Sandra Bernhardt, Ricky Martin and one surprise guest, who I'll tell you about later. All of the men where dressed in black ranging from regular suits to Sting wearing a tux. Elton wore a black Versace suit with rhinestone-edged lapels and the Versace medusa symbol on the back of his jacket. Sandra (at least during the first half of the show) wore a slender, shining grey dress. The theme for this year's benefit was a tribute to Frank Sinatra. The entire show was nothing but Sinatra songs.
Sting, Elton, and James Taylor started the show off with Well did you ever?. During the instrumental portion of the song, Sting introduced Sandra Bernhardt, Billy Joel, Don Henly and Charles Aznavour.
Tony Bennett was then introduced and sang I Wish I Were In Love Again. James Taylor was next to sing I Get A Kick Out of You. Don Henly sang Here Goes (?). ((?) means I'm not sure of the title of the song.). Sting then followed with a beautiful version of Witchcraft. He did a lovely job with this song. It fits his style of singing beautifully. Billy Joel was next singing One For My Baby. He set the tone for this one by having a small table with a tablecloth over it, and a drink in his hand and telling the audience to picture a guy alone in the bar just before it closes. Billy did a fabulous job with this song. I thought he had captured Frank Sinatra's vocal style very well on this song. Trudy Styler came out after Billy and gave a short speech about the rainforests and what the foundation has been able to do thus far. Then showed a video on the status of the Rainforest situation and how cures for deseases and certain anaimals and plants were being extinct and lost because of the shrinking Rainforests. Charles Azanavour, a French singer, came out next to sing These Precious Days.
Elton followed with the campiest verison of Love And Marriage I've ever heard. The highlight of the night was during the instrumental portion of this song when Elton went over to the side of the stage were Sting was sitting. Elton pulled out a bride's veil out, put it on Sting's head and the two of them proceeded to dance half way across the stage (almost like the start of a Tango) then back. After that, Elton then ran across the stage to the opposite side where Billy Joel was sitting. Elton sat down on Billy's lap, crossed his legs, and planted a big kiss on Billy's head before continuing with the song. When he was finished singing the song, Elton then introduced Sandra Bernhardt, and the two of them sang Something Stupid. I was surprised to hear that Sandra has a beautiful singing voice. I personally do not like her comedy and thought that's why she was there. I was delightfully surprised to find myself enjoying her singing. Of course it didn't hurt to have EJ as her partner in this song. I'm not very familar with the lyrics to this song, but I believe at one point during the song, the female (Sandra) has a line that says something like "Won't you say something stupid like I love you." Elton in reply turned his head to face the audience, grinned an evil grin and said loudly, "NOPE!!!" The audience went wild. Elton and Sandra also did some "dirty dancing" during the instrumental part of this song. After they were finished, the whole cast came out and everyone sang That's Life. The first half was about 30 minutes long, and so was the intermission.
The second act started with Sting coming on stage and paying a lovely tribute to Trudy saying how they've been married for 17 years, how she's his best friend, his lover, his beautiful wife and how he thinks that he knows her pretty well. Well, he then proceeded to tell us that they had seats up front at this year's Grammy awards, and how he was totally shocked to see that his loving wife was the leader of a pack of women rushing the stage when the next performer, Ricky Martin, took the stage. It was a fun moment during the show. Ricky Martin sang I've Got the World On A String (?). He did a lot of dancing up and down the stage. Elton was next to sing Come Fly With Me. Elton, at this point, had changed during intermission to a purple Versace suit. Charles Aznavour sang next My Funny Valintine. Sandra (who also changed for the second out), wearing a 60's style brown shorts outfit with purple suede boots with 5-6 inch heels, sang These Boots Are Made For Walking. Once again, I enjoyed her singing. Billy Joel came out next and sang I've Got You Under My Skin. Then Sting sang In The Wee Small Hours of Morning. James Taylor followed with Night & Day. Don Henly then sang Angel Eyes (?). Then the surprise guest I mentioned earlier made his way on stage. It was Bill Murray singing My Way. He had "problems" keeping up with the orchestra and changed the lyrics around. Very funny and entertaining. Billy Joel followed this by singing The Lady Is A Tramp. Loved his version of this song. Tony Bennett followed singing How Do You Keep The Music Playing. Tony also explained how he sang this song at a Frank Sinatra concert and how Tony didn't think Frank knew that he was even in the audience that night. I tell you Tony Bennett can still sing great!! He did an incredible job holding the high notes at for a long period of time at the end of the song. The finale was the entire cast singing New York, New York. They did a Rockette's line, with kicking to one side then the other, and everyone wore black top hats.
All in all it was a wonderful show, but timewise, I'd be surprised if it was longer than 90 minutes of music (not counting the 30 minute intermission).
Sorry this was a long e-mail, but I hope you enjoyed my summary of the evenings events as much as I enjoyed being in the audience that night.
Sharon
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