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Face 2 Face
Feb. 17th, 2010 05:49 pmLast night I went to the Billy Joel/Elton John concert at the HP Pavilion. It's the first time I've been there for something other than a hockey game and without an SO, so that was slightly disorienting. We had seats behind the stage which turned out not to be as bad as we thought (Billy Joel: "Bet you guys thought you were getting the shitty seats, huh? Really, it's those guys over there [pointing to the other end of the arena] and I love you for wanting to see us so much that you spent money to sit in those shitty seats."). We had a pretty good view of both Billy Joel and Elton John and their respective bands, though we were on the Billy Joel side so we had a better view of him and his antics at the piano. We were sitting on the side, so we got a bit of distortion (seemed worse from Elton and his band, for some reason) but overall it wasn't a terrible spot to be in.
They opened with a couple of duets ("Your Song", "Just the Way You Are" are the ones I remember, though I think they sang at least three songs together) and then Billy waved goodbye and walked off the stage, leaving Elton to do his set. I'm not as familiar with his catalogue as Billy's, but there were still quite a few favorites in there, including "Crocodile Rock", with green lights and the audience singing along. It was quite a long set, 45 minutes or so, I think. Then he waved goodbye and Billy came on did his set. I hadn't realized how funny he is, very charming and entertaining (as if I didn't already have a huge crush on him). There was only one song he sang that I didn't know by heart (from one of his earlier albums), and of course he had us all singing along for "We Didn't Start the Fire" (he also stepped away from the piano and picked up a guitar for that one). He did some crazy antics with his mic for "It's Still Rock'n'Roll to Me". I'd been expecting that one to be a duet at the end, but it made sense that it wasn't, because they were focusing on the piano-heavy songs for that.
Again, I don't remember all the songs they sang together at the end, though "Uptown Girl" and "Candle in the Wind" were among them. And they closed with "Piano Man", which was perfect, and they had the audience sing the chorus at one point:
"Sing us a song, you're the piano man, sing us a song tonight, because we're all in the mood for a melody and you've got us feeling all right."
The other thing I liked about it was that it really felt like Billy Joel expressed appreciation that we were there - earlier in the show he commented that his piano rotating was all they had for special effects and they were trying to keep ticket costs down though they weren't succeeding very well at that. From that and some other stuff he said, it felt like he really empathized with the audience and recognized what a tough time it is for people financially and that attending a concert at this time is a bigger than usual sacrifice.
I remembered why I never get the nachos, because I always lose the soggy chip race and end up throwing most of them away, and then I end up hungry again later.
It was nice to be there with my sisters - Simin bought the tickets for us, they were a replacement birthday present for me. She had gotten me Depeche Mode tickets originally but that show was cancelled and it took a while to find something to do in lieue of that. I'm sure she's really tired today, though - she didn't realize how late it would be (I guess the concerts she had been to before ended early).
My brother got home from Boston today (he was supposed to fly in last night but his flight was delayed) so my mom and Davina (my other sister) and I went over the hill and did some shopping and had some lunch before picking him up. I have this grand plan to make truffles and caramels (with the walnuts from my uncle's tree), so I wanted to get some good chocolate. Too tired after the late night and spending the day out to start my project today but I'm really looking forward to working on it tomorrow.
And now I have a kitty pestering me for love because I was out all day, so life is pretty good.
They opened with a couple of duets ("Your Song", "Just the Way You Are" are the ones I remember, though I think they sang at least three songs together) and then Billy waved goodbye and walked off the stage, leaving Elton to do his set. I'm not as familiar with his catalogue as Billy's, but there were still quite a few favorites in there, including "Crocodile Rock", with green lights and the audience singing along. It was quite a long set, 45 minutes or so, I think. Then he waved goodbye and Billy came on did his set. I hadn't realized how funny he is, very charming and entertaining (as if I didn't already have a huge crush on him). There was only one song he sang that I didn't know by heart (from one of his earlier albums), and of course he had us all singing along for "We Didn't Start the Fire" (he also stepped away from the piano and picked up a guitar for that one). He did some crazy antics with his mic for "It's Still Rock'n'Roll to Me". I'd been expecting that one to be a duet at the end, but it made sense that it wasn't, because they were focusing on the piano-heavy songs for that.
Again, I don't remember all the songs they sang together at the end, though "Uptown Girl" and "Candle in the Wind" were among them. And they closed with "Piano Man", which was perfect, and they had the audience sing the chorus at one point:
"Sing us a song, you're the piano man, sing us a song tonight, because we're all in the mood for a melody and you've got us feeling all right."
The other thing I liked about it was that it really felt like Billy Joel expressed appreciation that we were there - earlier in the show he commented that his piano rotating was all they had for special effects and they were trying to keep ticket costs down though they weren't succeeding very well at that. From that and some other stuff he said, it felt like he really empathized with the audience and recognized what a tough time it is for people financially and that attending a concert at this time is a bigger than usual sacrifice.
I remembered why I never get the nachos, because I always lose the soggy chip race and end up throwing most of them away, and then I end up hungry again later.
It was nice to be there with my sisters - Simin bought the tickets for us, they were a replacement birthday present for me. She had gotten me Depeche Mode tickets originally but that show was cancelled and it took a while to find something to do in lieue of that. I'm sure she's really tired today, though - she didn't realize how late it would be (I guess the concerts she had been to before ended early).
My brother got home from Boston today (he was supposed to fly in last night but his flight was delayed) so my mom and Davina (my other sister) and I went over the hill and did some shopping and had some lunch before picking him up. I have this grand plan to make truffles and caramels (with the walnuts from my uncle's tree), so I wanted to get some good chocolate. Too tired after the late night and spending the day out to start my project today but I'm really looking forward to working on it tomorrow.
And now I have a kitty pestering me for love because I was out all day, so life is pretty good.
