Rocket Man and more

Elton John has went from the slower “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” to the slightly more uptempo “Rocket Man” and the audience at the arena is singing along.

John’s voice sounds a little off but it might be because the backup vocalist is joining in and/or the microphone at his piano sounds a bit off. Nonetheless, his piano playing is great and his band’s sound is great.

There’s some retro 1970’s images coming out of the LCD backdrop (obviously because “Rocket Man is from 1972) and there are two large screens, which I forgot to mention, on both sides of the stage to clearly see John and his band.

John ended with an echo style chorus of “Rocket Man” that had a great feel to it and the audience screamed in approval before he went into a piano instrumental that I wish was used more in modern music today. He really dragged out the song, which went on for at least 10 minutes.

Afterward, John walked to the side of the stage like he was going to leave but came back to perform the 1974 hit “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.” The drums on the song are crisp, as are the keyboards and John is smiling as the audience loudly cheers.

When he ended, the entire audience appeared to clap their hands and yell in approval.

Next was the familar piano riff of 1973’s “Benny and the Jets.” It’s a little hard to hear John’s voice clearly on the song over the piano and guitar but the audience clearly doesn’t mind. He’s a great performer who gets the audience excited from his precise piano skills mixed with an energetic body language.

The chorus of his 1983 hit “I’m Still Standing” showed the age in his vocals (he can’t quite hit the high notes of the song anymore) but the thunderous uptempo piano and guitar instrumental seems to overshadow it.