Sir Elton



It was my birthday yesterday and to celebrate my lovely wife took me to see Sir Elton John at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. Although not as active, flamboyant or with the same vocal range he displayed when I saw him in Ottawa in the 80's, the guy can still really put on a great show. The performance began with "Funeral for a Friend (Love Lies Bleeding)" and included Tiny Dancer, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (my fave) Bennie and the Jets, Crocodile Rock, Philadelphia Freedom, Rocket Man, Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, Someone Saved My Life Tonight (awesome), Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting, while in between these classics he mixed in some of the new songs off of "The Captain and the Cowboy". The man is such a ham, but such a great showman. During "Bitch is Back" he lay across his piano striking a pose and then jumped off. I was worried he might break a hip, but amazingly he is still agile for his years. I have been lucky over the years to see some great acts like Elton, Elvis Costello, Joe Cocker, all of whom put on an amazing show and seem very passionate about their craft. Even if you are not a fan, the performances are worth the price of admission. We went with Theo's friends from work which was amusing in itself. While they are extremely nice people they are very straight-laced christians. When they asked me what church I went to I responded "The round one". They pressed on. "What's the round church"? "It's the one where the devil can't corner me". They let the subject drop then. On the way home Theo and I thought about how much our lives have changed. We used to follow the Grateful Dead and party like mad pagans and now we are going to Elton John concerts with a group of christians whose idea of partying is, well...going to an Elton john concert. Maybe that's not such a bad thing really. There have been a few concerts I attended over the years that I missed out on due to being trashed out of my mind.