Skip to main content

Concert Review: Elton John

By
And now, a stream-of-consciousness style review of Elton John's "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" tour, at the Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, October 1st, 2014.

Almost arrived late due to insane traffic weirdness.  Audience appears to be mostly middle-aged women.  But I ended up seated behind a whole row of bros who stood up basically all the time.  What we all had in common - a great time.

John was a great performer, maybe not as virtuosic as Billy Joel, but very talented




He loved the crowd, at mid-point let people come right up to the stage, and high-fived a little boy.  People kept jumping onto the stage to try to give him a hug.  Got up from piano after every song to walk around the stage and wave specifically at each section of the audience.  At the end, signed autographs for the people next to the stage.

Someone brought him a flag.  ???




Sparkly.  So sparkly.

Terrible backdrops.  One of the best parts about my seat at the extreme edge of the arena was not having to look at the screens.  Basically I had the best seats - direct view of the piano keyboard, ie his back.  The giant screens were directly above my head, parallel to my view, and the ones behind the band were all out of sight.  Very close to the stage.

Giant chandelier thingie?  Changed shape?  Colors?  Kinda weird.



Rest of band basically played back-up, the guitarists seemed pretty happy though

Played the majority of the standards/songs I knew, probably about 6 songs I didn't know by heart (Ocean's Away, Grey Seal, some other ones he didn't announce)




Encores were Crocodile Rock, Circle of Life, and....?  time to leave.

Kinda want to be him for Halloween now.  Spaaaarkles.

He can totally still sing.  Some nice improv/interludes before Rocket Man, and at the beginning, which was a medley of famous tunes.


Did I mention the sparkles?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: "Theory and Design in the First Machine Age"

By
Reyner Banham 's Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (1960) is an engaging overview of the important theoretical developments of the early 20th century leading up to the "International Style" of the 1930s-40s.  Banham does a fairly good job, in my opinion, of avoiding excessive editorializing, although he has a clear viewpoint on the Modern Movement and finishes with a strong conclusion.  In opposition to his teacher, Nikolaus Pevsner , whose own history of modernism came out in 1936, Banham dismantled the " form follows function " credo that became the stereotype of modernism, arguing instead that formalism (a preoccupation with style and aesthetics) was an important, if not overriding, concern of Modern architects.  Two sections of the book struck me in particular: his analysis of Le Corbusier's famous book Vers une architecture (Toward a [new] architecture) from 1923, and his Conclusion (chapter 22), where he breaks the link between functionali...
1 comment
Read more

A Voter's Guide: Local Elections 2016

By
I spent a long time researching different local races and some of the ballot measures here in Santa Clara County.  In case you're on the fence or want some further information to guide your voting, I've compiled my thoughts here. Selection Methodology I have three tiers for selecting  candidates. 1. Alignment on Issues:  I will choose the candidate who is most closely aligned with me on the issues I think are important. 2. Experience and Education:  All other things being equal, I will choose the candidate who has the most knowledge of what is required for the position, either through education, previous experience, or active participation in similar positions. 3. Women and Minorities:  All other things being equal (#1 and #2 above), I will choose candidates who are women or minorities in order to increase the diversity of voices of our elected officials.  It's my own personal form of affirmative action. The Issues We're fortunate enough to li...
Post a Comment
Read more

Housing Affordability in the Bay Area: An Architectural Perspective

By
The Bay Area's housing crisis has gained a status akin to the weather: We can't help but mention it whenever two or more Bay Area residents are gathered together, and we feel there's equally nothing we can do to change it.  But instead of the general praise given to the area's weather, there is general despair about the state of housing.  At least among the twenty-something set and construction industry professionals who make up my peers and colleagues, there are few answers and much criticism for the way we live here.  It's not dense enough, public transportation is a sham, and housing costs are outrageous.  Many of my peers agree that they would not live here at all except that their spouse/significant other works in the tech industry, without whose salary they could not afford to live here, but whose worth is so valued here that it makes little sense economically to live elsewhere.  Here in the Peninsula it's just as bad as in San Francisco ("the city...
Post a Comment
Read more