On Saturday night, Nick and I went to the Elton John concert here in Memphis. It was such an incredible concert! (It was so sweet of him to surprise me with tickets a few weeks ago after I mentioned how much I loved Elton John's music!) The Elton John concert was nothing short of incredible. I was absolutely blown away with how true he was to his studio recordings, and how pitch-perfect he is. If you ever have the opportunity to see him live, you are in for an incredible performance; he is even better preforming live! (That is a very high compliment, because many artists are better on their heavily edited studio recordings. Elton is perfection in both settings!)
The thing I appreciated the most about him though was the simplicity of it all. The lighting and the stage itself were fairly simple for someone of such fame. The thing I appreciated about that was that it allowed for Elton John's voice to shine through, and put the focus entirely on the music. Not only did Elton John sound incredible, so did his back up singers and his band! For someone that has a music career spanning over 4 decades, has been knighted by the Queen, and is such a legend, he exuded nothing but humbleness. I think that says a lot about his character. Towards the end of the show, he took the time to walk around the front of the stage for a few moments and tried to greet as many people/sign autographs as he could. After nearly every song, he'd stand up for a moment and walk over to the crowd, showing thanks and acknowledging everyone. This is someone who truly values and loves his fans! This just made me love him even more!
And on the note of loving his fans, you have to admire his dedication! He was so ill on Friday, that he sadly had to cancel his concert in Birmingham, Al. Not wanting to cancel yet another show, they pressed on and traveled all the way to Memphis, just to put on an incredible show. He probably didn't feel 100% during the Memphis show, but his performance was still golden! That is true dedication! I have nothing but respect for him as a person and as a musician. I am so glad that we were able to see such an amazing legend preform live at such a terrific show!
Elton preforming! I was so excited that he sang quite a few of my favorites!
(If you look closely in the bottom right of the picture, you can see his black piano.)
I apologize that the picture quality isn't the best. I was only able to snap a few pictures before the battery on my phone got too low.
In addition to Elton John being an outstanding musician, performer, and father...he is also an incredible humanitarian! He has been so outspoken in the fight against AIDS. (For those of you not familiar with Ryan White's story, I encourage you to look it up; he had Childhood HIV/AIDS as the result of a blood transfusion to treat his hemophilia, and faced a lot of ignorance and hate at the hand of his community during a time when AIDS awareness was very low.) I don't feel that my blog post would be complete without mentioning the incredible charity that Elton John founded to garner support for research and awareness. If you'd like to have a look at some of the work they do, here is the link: http://ejaf.org/
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