Date: Thu, 23 Mar 1995 21:56:01 -0500 Message-Id: <199503240256.VAA00731@chaos.taylored.com> From: Jim McKay To: joel@chaos.taylored.com Reply-To: Jim McKay Subject: Re: Billy Joel/Elton John Errors-To: nobody@chaos.taylored.com Precedence: list Sender: joel-request@chaos.taylored.com (Billy Joel Mailing List) X-List: Billy Joel X-Author: Jim McKay THIS IS FROM TEH ELTON JOHN MAIL SERVICE. TO SUBSCRIBE SEND EMAIL TO the-22nd-row@uiuc.edu. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Mar 95 07:33:50 PST From: egreen@nosc.mil (Erwin M Green) Subject: SPOILER - San Diego F2F concert March 22, 1995 marked the resumption of the Face to Face Tour in beautiful San Diego, California. Since I hadn't been to a stadium concert in some time, I was curious about the layout. Judging from the previous F2F posts, it was the same so I won't dwell on that. Billy Joel came out to "Yankee Doodle Dandy" while Elton John came out to some UK anthem (not sure whether it was O Britannia or God Save The Queen!). Anyway, they hugged at center stage, then went to their respective pianos and the concert started (twenty minutes late, but hey, It's EJ & BJ!). They did the first three songs together: Your Song, Honesty, and Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me (Billy forgot some of the words in the second verse but it didn't affect my enjoyment of the song.) Then Billy left and Elton did his set, which is as follows: Philadelphia Freedom / Take Me To The Pilot (complete with a very bluesy intro, Ray was jamming') / Believe (chilling version live!)/ Levon / Rocket Man (The lighting was used to great effect on this song. It started off with green and purple lights, then shifted to gold, then to blue, purple and white, then back. Elton also had another "bluesy" breakdown near the end of the song, and ended up raising the tempo to a gospel pitch {like "going to church, Baptist style"}) / Simple Life / The One / band introduction / New York State of Mind / Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding (for me, the highlight of the show. The combination of surreal light effects set off behind Ray and their musical prowess showed me why Elton John is such a captivating performer!) / Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues (Billy returns)/ Can You Feel The Love Tonight (showed clips from the Lion King) / Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting (Ray had a solo and ended the song with a gong hit)/ Pinball Wizard (another crowd pleaser!) Billy entered with a guitar and launched into No Man's Land. The rest of his set is as follows: I Go To Extremes (nice piano breakdown concluding with "butt-rubbing" the keys!) / Billy The Kid? /Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (he really impressed me with this one) / Scenes From An Italian Restaurant (good use of red and green lights during the first "tempo change") / My Life (Elton returns) / Allentown / Lullaby/The River of Dreams /band introduction / does Jim Morrison impression(Riders On The Storm [1 verse]) / We Didn't Start The Fire / It's Still Rock And Roll To Me / Only The Good Die Young ENCORE: The Bitch Is Back / You May Be Right / Bennie And The Jets (dueling pianos at the end) / A Hard Day's Night / Lucille / Great Balls Of Fire / Candle In The Wind / Piano Man (of course!) Comments: Both guys were in good form. I preferred Elton's set. It seemed the crowd overall was a bit more into EJ than BJ but for the most part, the crowd was attentive. Nobody held loud conversations while either performer was on. It was supposed to rain, but did not. However the cold made up for it. Started at 7:20, ended about 11:15 with a 15 minute intermission. Overall, a very good show by the "Piano Men". It almost made me wonder why I gave up going to stadium shows. Then I met the crowds outside :) Sorry for rambling. Chameleon P.S. The current program shows the remaining dates and places. If anyone wants this info, I can post to the group. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IN TAUPIN'S WORDS "In the quiet silent seconds I tunred off the lightswitch And I came down to meet you in the half-light the moon left..." ====================================================================== ABOUT ARTICLE REPRODUCTIONS... Articles reproduced here are for academic and discussion purposes. They are reproduced not for profit and under fair use. (End of Digest) ----------------------------------------------------------------------