It's been more then a couple of weeks already since Janis and I went to the Elton John Farewell Yellow Brick Road show at Rogers Place. This was the first of a two night stand with both shows being sold out. I had never seen Sir Elton John in concert before, so this show was a bucket list one, but after seeing prices for tickets, I didn't think I would be going. The price was unreasonable in my opinion, 200 dollars for tickets in the boonies. I had said I wouldn't pay over 200 bucks. That and the show sold out ridiculously quick, both shows. I kept my eyes on Ticketmaster for months watching for seats. By the time Friday rolled around, the first night of his two shows, I didn't think I was going to get to see Elton in concert. Well two hours before show time, lo and behold I checked the site again and managed to score two tickets for the show at $87.00 each, they weren't the greatest seats but we were in, and that's what mattered. Now when I saw the seats, 4th row in the upper deck I thought that's not too bad. But I forgot at the new arena fourth row in the upper deck (side stage view) is actually way up there, with the two tiers of club seats between lower and upper deck, fourth row is up there. Not like the old Coliseum where row four in the blues were actually pretty decent seats. Nonetheless, we were going!
Elton John and his band which consisted of long time members Davey Johnstone on guitar and backing vocals, Nigel Olsson on drums, Ray Cooper on percussion, John Mahon on percussion and vocals who has been with Elton since 1997, Kim Bullard on keyboards since 2009 and Matt Bissonette on bass since 2012 opened with "Bennie And The Jets" and man did they sound good. Elton sounded great on vocals and wow I never realized how good he really is on piano. While our seats were a side stage view, we couldn't see the back of the stage which is where the screen was, that was kind of a bummer, but at least we could see the band and the sound was pretty good from where we were. The two and a half hour show was one hit after another, songs like "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues", "Tiny Dancer", "Rocket Man", "Levon", "Candle In The Wind" and "Daniel". From where we were sitting you could really see the people in the floor seating dancing and having a blast.
At one point during the show Sir Elton went on to explain his reason for the Farewell Tour mentioning spending more time with family, and thanking his fans for all the support, he came across as very sincere. He got a huge round of applause after his speech.
The last third of the show we moved down to the main concourse and managed to find a place to stand and watch the rest of the show where we could see the whole stage and the screen and such. And we were able to dance to the remaining songs like "The Bitch Is Back", "Crocodile Rock", "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" and then for the encore "Your Song" and to end the show "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". So that was fun to be able to dance and have fun, because there is no way you are standing or dancing in the higher bowl of the arena, it's so damn steep up there and the aisles are so crunched it's hard to move at all, never mind dance. We had an absolute blast at this show and am very happy that we managed to get tickets at a decent price. Good times!!!
Elton John at Rogers Place.
T-shirt front.
Back.
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