Friday, October 13, 2006

A Brief Review of...Elton John: One Night Only

Apparently, Elton or his manager never got the memo about the BeeGees' concert DVD title.

Anyhoo, I did not watch all of the DVD (which came yesterday from Amazon via UPS). But, what little I have viewed is quite awesome. Particularly the "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Suite", which I will always lovingly call the very first four tracks of the concert. Those tracks being "Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" (quite possibly my absolute most favorite track out of the ENTIRE Elton John catalogue...its inclusion as the concert intro scoring BIG TIME brownie points with me), "Candle In the Wind", "Bennie and the Jets", and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". The very latter song is especially worth mentioning in its giving one a taste of the "Elton John/Billy Joel: Face To Face" experience, thanks to Long Island's ivory tickling pride and joy making a guest appearance. And, being one who *really* wanted to see the "Face To Face" concert a few years ago AND am just as much a fan of Billy* as I am of Elton, I keeping hoping for a DVD release of some kind eventually.

After the "Yellow Brick Suite"...Elton goes into "Someone Saved My Life Tonight", the one classic of his of which I have never been all that fond. "Someone" suffers heavily from what I like to call the ""Down By the River" Syndrome". Just like the namesake song by Neil Young, despite being done by an very well liked artist of mine, "Someone" gets overplayed way too much, tends to drag, AND is just simply not the best song from that artist. Not to mention how I've always thought Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy is one of the most overrated of Sir Elton's classic albums. Give me his self-titled, Tumbleweed Connection, Madman Across the Water, Honky Chateau, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and/or, heck, even Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Piano Player 24-7.

Which leads me to what I feel could have been left off AND added on to the concert line-up...

OFF: "Can You Feel the Love Tonight", "The One", "Sacrifice", and "Come Together".

ON: "Take Me To the Pilot", "Madman Across the Water", "Harmony", and "I Feel Like A Bullet (In the Gun of Robert Ford)". (Hey, with Elton John, you gotta have a guilty pleasure song or two in there...and "Robert Ford" is one of mine.)

Other than those four "OFF" songs, the majority of the concert was/is a GREAT mix of EJ's best 70's and 80's songs. Highly recommended for lovers of classic rock/80's and/or just plain wonderful music in general.


Current Music: "Dan's Ice Cream Truck" - Street Fighter Alpha 2 OverClocked Remix

* - You cannot call yourself a classic rock fan until you have heard Billy Joel's "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant"...EASILY my most favorite work of his, among others.
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