Face 2 Face !!
Eric and I saw Billy Joel and Elton John in concert tonight on their Face 2 Face Tour. It was AWESOME! Their voices sound great, their stage presence is great, the music has always been great, their bands are amazing, the energy in the room was through the roof, it was unbeatable. And Eric and I got to enjoy it side by side, which made it that much better.
They opened with four songs together at their "face to face" full size grand pianos. (Gosh, yes, the PIANO playing we heard tonight was out of this world!) They started with one of my favorite songs, "Your Song"... and it was just hit after hit all night with stuff going back to the 70s. After their four together, Elton John sang about 90 minutes of his favorites, after which Billy Joel sang another hour of his favorites, and then they closed with another set face to face, concluding with "Piano Man", with Joel playing piano AND harmonica simultaneously, of course!
Their styles complement each other very well, and it's fun to hear them sing one another's songs. They have very different stage styles, though. Elton is more serious and doesn't talk much, while Billy likes to make amusing small talk with the audience (and he's very good at it). He had us laughing a lot. One of his quips was about how he had been wondering if there was a certain age at which singers were supposed to retire. The audience started to rumble and boo, but he came back with "then I watched the Superbowl half-time show with The Who and decided there must not be!" He also stopped halfway through "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", panting, and said, "It's frickin' high up here!!" hehe.
They also had unique set-ups. The two pianos were on separate lifts so that at any time, they could have either, both, or neither piano on stage. Elton's had a regular piano bench and four monitors surrounding him; Billy's had a swivel stool and only two monitors, but his piano was on a turntable and had some kind of unusual thing in it - it looked like it might be a computer monitor or something where the music stand would usually be. I'll have to do a little scouting online and see if I can figure out what made that piano so unusual.
Partway through, I became aware of a strange echo, and realized that most of the 20,000 or so audience members were singing along for the whole concert - but it wasn't bothersome since the sound system was loud enough to almost completely hide it. But it always made it cool when the artists stopped singing to let the audience sing because they didn't even have to indicate they were going to do it - the audience never missed a beat because they were already singing.
It was just a stellar evening. Three and a half solid hours of exceptional music. I'd go again if I had the chance.
They opened with four songs together at their "face to face" full size grand pianos. (Gosh, yes, the PIANO playing we heard tonight was out of this world!) They started with one of my favorite songs, "Your Song"... and it was just hit after hit all night with stuff going back to the 70s. After their four together, Elton John sang about 90 minutes of his favorites, after which Billy Joel sang another hour of his favorites, and then they closed with another set face to face, concluding with "Piano Man", with Joel playing piano AND harmonica simultaneously, of course!
Their styles complement each other very well, and it's fun to hear them sing one another's songs. They have very different stage styles, though. Elton is more serious and doesn't talk much, while Billy likes to make amusing small talk with the audience (and he's very good at it). He had us laughing a lot. One of his quips was about how he had been wondering if there was a certain age at which singers were supposed to retire. The audience started to rumble and boo, but he came back with "then I watched the Superbowl half-time show with The Who and decided there must not be!" He also stopped halfway through "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", panting, and said, "It's frickin' high up here!!" hehe.
They also had unique set-ups. The two pianos were on separate lifts so that at any time, they could have either, both, or neither piano on stage. Elton's had a regular piano bench and four monitors surrounding him; Billy's had a swivel stool and only two monitors, but his piano was on a turntable and had some kind of unusual thing in it - it looked like it might be a computer monitor or something where the music stand would usually be. I'll have to do a little scouting online and see if I can figure out what made that piano so unusual.
Partway through, I became aware of a strange echo, and realized that most of the 20,000 or so audience members were singing along for the whole concert - but it wasn't bothersome since the sound system was loud enough to almost completely hide it. But it always made it cool when the artists stopped singing to let the audience sing because they didn't even have to indicate they were going to do it - the audience never missed a beat because they were already singing.
It was just a stellar evening. Three and a half solid hours of exceptional music. I'd go again if I had the chance.
posted by DenverSop @ 1:14 AM
1 Comments:
At 2/23/2010 11:45 AM,
Ward said…
We saw them in Seattle and I especially enjoyed Seattle's 17,000 member choir. Where did you sit? We had fab seats in the lower left corner of the arena (row 25 ish) They were about an inch tall. :)
Billy also broke into "When the Saints Go marching in" on one song; it was the day before the Super Bowl. He also improvised some Gershwin and Bernstein.
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