Elton John & Friends Return to the "Yellow Brick Road" in New York
Robson Vianna
ELTON JOHN - ELTON JOHN UPSETS FANS WITH SHORT PERFORMANCE AT BENEFIT GIG
Thierry Henry Cystic Fibrosis 'Liv' charity dinner hosted by David Beckham held at the Dorcester - Arrivals
London, England ....
SIR ELTON JOHN angered fans who had paid up to $2,500 (GBP1,400) for tickets to a benefit performance in New York on Monday (20Oct08), when he only appeared onstage for the final three songs.
The legendary rocker staged the event to celebrate the 35th anniversary of his iconic double-album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, with ticket sales benefitting AIDS charities, including his own Elton John AIDS Foundation.
The LP was played in its entirity by a host of theatre and chart performers including Jane Krakowski, Ben Folds, Rufus Wainwright and Jake Shears.
But some fans at Broadway's New Amsterdam Theatre grew restless for the star himself to perform, yelling angry chants of "I want my money back" and "where's Elton", reports RollingStone.com.
John finally appeared for the final three songs - Roy Rogers, a duet of Social Disease with Jake Shears and an ensemble performance of Harmony.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2008/oct/22/elton-john-aids-musical-ben-stiller
Elton John's Aids musical is less radical than it seems
The pop star's new project, a musical about a gay man with Aids facing up to his wife and children, is not the first to put the disease centre stage
Shock of the old ... Elton John on stage. Photograph: Uli Deck/EPA
"Everyone has Aids!
Everyone has Aids, Aids, Aids, Aids,
Aids, Aids, Aids, Aids, Aids!
Everyone has Aids!"
Catchy, isn't it? This subversive song from the 2004 puppet movie Team America: World Police goes on:
"My father ... Aids! My sister ... Aids!
My uncle and my cousin and her best friend: Aids.
Gays, straights, whites and spades,
everyone has Aids.
My grandma and my old dog Blue.
The Pope has got it and so do you."
Now Elton John has revealed in an interview in a GQ blog that he's writing a new film musical for Ben Stiller – about a Broadway guy "who is gay, has HIV and Aids, and has to go back and face his wife and his kids that he left." He insists, "It's very funny."
Of course, Aids has not been a laughing matter for the millions affected globally, but Sir Elton obviously wants to embrace contradictions. He also revealed his plans to collaborate with Eminem, whose lyrics have always prompted outrage in the gay community. Yet this is the man who, since establishing the Elton John Aids Foundation in 1992, raised over £92m under its auspices to support HIV-prevention programmes around the world - including a closet sale of nearly 10,000 pieces of clothing donated by himself and David Furnish that earned almost £460,000 in New York in 2006.
But then Elton has never been a model of consistency, except when it comes to courting controversy. Though he is now one of the most successful composers of musicals in the world – thanks to the global success of The Lion King, and with Billy Elliot in previews on Broadway and set to reprise its West End triumph – he takes the opportunity to dismiss the entire genre with a typically egotistical flourish: "I don't really like them unless I'm involved in them, for some reason."
But the truth is that he was beaten to this particular storyline long ago. William Finn followed his 1981 one-act musical March of the Falsettos, about a man who leaves his wife and son to begin a new relationship with another man, with a moving sequel in 1990 called Falsettoland, in which the boyfriend he left his wife for then contracts an Aids-related illness. The two were bolted together into a double-bill called Falsettos, premiered on Broadway in 1992. Numerous other musicals, from Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens (a song cycle inspired by the Aids Memorial Quilt, premiered in 1989 in New York and later seen briefly in the West End in 1993) and Rent (first produced in 1996, and whose Broadway run only finally ended in September after 12 years) to Boy George's Taboo (premiered in London in 2002), have put HIV characters, both straight and gay, centre stage.
So Elton isn't quite as hip as he thinks. Far more radical is the idea of bringing La Cage Aux Folles back to the West End, as it is being right now. This musical - whose 1986 London premiere was widely thought to have been derailed by public fears of the then-emerging Aids crisis – offered, long before the current era of civil partnerships, a simultaneously affirmative and defiant portrait of a gay marriage as valid as a straight one, especially when it comes to the responsibilities of child-raising.
But if espousing conventionality is still a radical step, there are no taboos left in musicals anymore. You might think that the most radical thing about Elton writing an original screen musical may be the writing of one at all. But the imminent arrival of the latest in the High School Musical franchise reminds us that he's not even breaking new ground in that respect.
Elton John & Friends Return to the "Yellow Brick Road" in New York
10/21/08, 11:48 am EST
Photo: Getty
Towards the end of the second song of the night, a tepid version of "Candle In The Wind" by South Pacific actress Kelli O'Hara, the catcalls began. "Where's Elton?" screamed a furious woman. "This is bullshit!" yelled an even angrier man. The event — a 35th anniversary celebration of Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road to raise money for the Elton John Aids Foundation — was billed as "Elton John & Friends," but a quick glance at the Playbill revealed Elton wasn't coming until the final three songs of the night. Most of the "I Want My Money Back!" screams were greeted by angry shushes, however, since the collection of Broadway singers, pop stars and the occasional drag queen all had interesting takes on the material.
The night began with an elaborate dance number set to "Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" by Broadway vets Melissa Hough and Lerry Keigwin. The crack house band led by pianoist Tom Kitt recreated the haunting instrumental number with perfect precision and made it feel like the beginning of a as-of-yet unmade (but inevitable) Elton John jukebox musical. The first killer performance of the night came four songs in when Rufus Wainwright delivered a powerful "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." His one-time tourmate Ben Folds came out next and lead the band through faithful versions of "This Song Has No Title" and "Grey Seal."
The hits on John's classic double album are packed very early on in the running order, so many of the performers stuck with obscure songs got creative in order to keep the audience's attention. "Jamaica Jerk Off" was transformed into a euphoric dance routine by the cast of Hair, while "The Ballad Of Danny Bailey" was turned into a free-style rap by In The Heights star Lin-Manuel Miranda and beatboxer Shockwave. Little Mermaid star Sherie Rene Scott gets the Most Creative award for her rendition of "Dirty Little Girl," which she performed as Sarah Palin, complete with a prop gun and a hysterical monologue about moose hunting and abstinence. Who knew Ariel had it in her? Drag queen Joey Arias did a burlesque rendition of "I've Seen That Movie Too" that had at least one couple headed for the exists before it was over.
Elton John brought the house to their feet when he came on to sing the nostalgic "Roy Rogers." Scissor Sisters singer Jake Shears joined him for "Social Disease" and much of the cast returned for the finale of "Harmony." It might not have been as rewarding for the Elton faithful as his 2005 performance of Captain Fantastic at Madison Square Garden, but for everyone else it was a fun night on the theater for a great cause.
Elton John: the Brit is back!
http://www.readthehook.com/blog/index.php/2008/10/21/elton-john-the-brit-is-back/
Elton John as seen from upper deck.PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER
Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye, reserved some of his strongest opprobrium for a pianist who added extra flourishes. But when the piano man is Elton John and the songs are America's soundtrack, sometimes less isn't more.
The haunting "Levon," the song about about a boy-man born a pauper to a pawn, got an interesting bit of reverb about halfway through, as John R&Bed the end of it Friday night at John Paul Jones Arena. And consider what he did to "Rocket Man."
Seen upon its 1972 release as a mere response to David Bowie's haunting "Space Oddity," John's song about a Mars traveller was originally four minutes, forty-one seconds of quiet loneliness counterposed against synthesized, overdubbed harmonies.
But inside Virginia's biggest concert venue, "Rocket Man" grew into something closer to a rock opera. As colorful, almost Yellow Submarine, images danced behind him, the 61-year-old pianist showed how even a classic can get a new interpretation.
"I want to get up and dance," said the attractive blonde fan in the next seat, as celestial scenes (and archival images of Captain Fantastic himself) moved behind the band during the extended "Rocket Man." By the time the 10-minute opus ended, the crowd was indeed on its feet in a standing ovation.
Speaking of standing, there was one fan– a wild whirling-pogo-man-boy in the front row– unable to restrain his glee. The performer, likewise, hopped up from his piano bench to wave, point, and thank the crowd after nearly every song.
At one point, he burst from his seat to lead the crowd in la-la-laing his "Crocodile Rock." While obviously not as athletic as countryman Mick Jagger, who cavorted across another local stage three years ago, John gave a physically impressive performance that included a solo and even (unless he thought it was New Year's Eve) a brief nod to UVA by playing the hook of the "Good Old Song."
"Hope you win the game tomorrow," he told the packed-to-the-rafters crowd who paid $57-111 to be there and whose average age appeared to start with a five.
Although John's voice no longer finds the highest notes and even though his Manhattan phone book-thick hit catalogue offers myriad opportunities to thrill, he still found a way to create a fervor with his now falsetto-free version of that perpetual radio staple "Tiny Dancer."
As the main event ended, John chose not to leave the stage but instead signed tickets and t-shirts while five minutes of screaming and clapping led the band– which includes original drummer Nigel Olsson and original guitarist Davey Johnstone– to join the the orange-haired frontman for an encore.
John has ditched the ostrich feathers and giant sunglasses that defined his 1970s flamboyance, but what he's given up in props, he seems to be taking back in intensity. As the concert wrapped after about two hours and 45 minutes of non-stop energetic singing and playing, the conclusion would be obvious, even to Holden Caulfield.
Sometimes more is more.
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Robson Vianna.
