You all mean so much to me

In November '21, I was struggling to decide what to get the lovely Mrs Reed for Xmas - and then yet another batch of Elton John tickets went on sale, so that was me sorted with very little thought.  And I'm pleased to say that the idea of a summer date in the luxury environs of Watford Football Stadium went down well with her, so a 7 month period of anticipation began.  Except that we only managed a 6 month period of anticipation because when she became unable to get out of bed with a bad back, it was very clear that Elton was going to have to go without our presence (she also missed out on Ed Sheeran and a trip to Paris as well!) - the tickets were sold on to someone very happy to take them off our hands, but it felt like our chance to see the man before he settled into a well-earned retirement had passed.

But then, sometime towards the end of last year, he added one more show to his O2 Arena list - so after some frantic online clicking, we got to go through the whole process all over again!   Except that this time her back held up, so we found ourselves making our separate ways (she doesn't like to be seen out with me) to the peculiar, but impressive venue that is the O2 Arena with a sense of relief and high expectation of a good show (he's certainly had enough practice over the years!).  But did he deliver?!?

Oh yes, he very much did.  I was expecting his voice to be pretty good, but it was way stronger than expected and I was expecting his piano playing to be pretty good, but it too was way stronger than expected.  And he delivered a 2.5 hour set which ain't bad at any age, let alone 76 - although it's fair to say there's not a lot of dancing involved and he did appear to do his encores in his dressing gown and he left the stage in an automated zimmer frame.  What I wasn't particularly expecting was the very strong band backing him up - there were some proper skills on display up there!  And the band aren't exactly spring chickens either, with the youngest of them being a sprightly 62.

And they certainly weren't lacking in potential songs to give us from his back catalogue - they played most of the classics ("Daniel" was the only one that I thought was obviously missing), but they certainly didn't play carbon copy versions of the singles, with some of them being seriously extended (generally featuring a piano or guitar solo section, or both).  It's hard to pick a favourite from the classic tracks, but if forced I'd go for "Tiny Dancer", "Rocket Man" (SERIOUSLY extended), "Candle In The Wind" and the closing pair of "Your Song" and (of course) "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road".  And I guess we have to mention "I'm Still Standing", "Crocodile Rock" and "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" which got everyone on their feet (although it's interesting how much worse the sound is in these videos as a result).

As well as the classics, he played quite a few tracks I'd only heard a few times, or possibly never - there's so many of his albums out there it's hard to tell!  And despite my unfamiliarity, I still really enjoyed them - I wasn't aware I'd ever heard "Levon" or "Burn Down The Mission" (I've certainly not reviewed either of the albums they're on) and I also particularly liked "Border Song" and "Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" (watch this for the amusing moving piano).

As I previously said, we didn't see exact copies of the recorded songs - you often got the impression that Elton wasn't entirely sure what notes he was going to play next and that just made the band more impressive that they kept up with him.  The whole set was very tight and they made an impressively full sound considering there were only seven of them onstage - a lot of this was due to most of them being extremely capable backing singers.

Another significantly contributing factor to the impressive sound was the unusual presence of three percussionists - Nigel Olsson was the main drummer (and he's played with Elton for 54 years now) but he was backed up by John Mahon and a very amusing Ray Cooper who both played drums at times, but mostly played absolutely anything that could be called percussion (and also, in Ray's case, made funny faces).  Having slightly more thankless roles were Kim Bullard (very much playing second fiddle on other keyboards) and Matt Bissonette (bass guitar - a vital, but often overlooked role) whilst Davey Johnstone held the whole thing together as band leader (whatever one of those is) and guitarist - and he had quite the selection of guitars at his disposal, all of which he handled very skilfully (and Wikipedia tells me he's played over 3000 - THREE THOUSAND!!! gigs with Elton).

At this point I'm going to take a quick trip down a Wikipedia rabbit-hole about the tour - there's a few impressive facts there!  The first show was in Allentown, Pa on 8th September 2018 and the last one will be in Stockholm on 8th July this year, after over 300 shows.  And so far it's sold over 5.3m tickets and grossed $853m, making it the highest grossing tour of all time - it's not been a trivial undertaking, to say the least.

Back to the show, the set was also impressive - a MASSIVE screen that the band either sat in the middle of (with a huge array of percussional objects) or stood (or drove a piano around) in front of, whilst the screen showed either action from the gig or artistic videos, mostly reflecting some aspect of Elton's life including, touchingly, photos of his parents and, amusingly, shots from Rocketman.  Which made both of us want to watch it again - it's a great film if you haven't seen it (it does everything that Bohemian Rhapsody should have done, and patently didn't).

There was also an interestingly diverse crowd, particularly age-wise with there being a LOT more younger people there than I was expecting, and some great costumes (plenty of very fine Dodger Stadium outfits in particular).  And they were having a great time, without being too annoying (at least in our part of the stadium) - although the number of times some people went to the bar was impressive from a financial point of view, if nothing else.  Also, at one point, it looked like two people from our row were leaving after an hour and we were like "why would you do that?" - but it turned out they wanted a drink and didn't trust us not to nick their stuff.

So, did I enjoy it?  Do you REALLY need to ask that?!?  I was expecting a good night out, but it was a GREAT night out - we (and, as far as I could tell, everyone else) thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm glad I'll get to catch up with him again at Glastonbury on his (probably!) very final concert in the UK.  Thank you Elton and your amazingly talented band for a superb evening - and you've definitely earned your retirement!