Red Piano and the Very, Very, Very Baffling
Dan Downing (a.k.a. smiling)
At the other end of Chris’ musical / celebrity adoration spectrum is where I live.
My butt found itself comfortably ensconced in the third row Orchestra at Caesar’s Palace for Elton John’s Red Piano extravaganza last October, spitting distance to where Elton planted his.  The Colosseum was full of screaming, delirious fans, many of whom paid $250 for the privilege.  I paid zero, this being part of the computer conference package I attended.
Baffling to me was the apparent adoration of this overweight, aging rock star and of his music.  Baffling again was the evidently turned on audience in last evening’s NBC’s telecast of this same concert. With the exception of a couple of his hit songs (Daniel, Rocket Man), his music, to me, is not in the same class as that of my musical heroes of the 60s (Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, Buffy Saint Marie, Joan Baez). I loved their music, but did not fawn at their stages nor identify myself as a fan.
In fact, the whole notion of celebrity adoration is very, very, very baffling to me.  Yes, I can admire both form and content of a Jewel at the Boston Opera (attended by a subset of the usual canoe-group suspects in 1999?), but people that can put their feelings and life insights into thought-provoking poetry, sing them lucidly, and accompany them with understated guitar chords so you can clearly hear the words and get the message, are relatively few.
And very baffling to me also is that anyone would pay dearly for an event like this in a theatre as large as the Colosseum for a view that from most seats requires binoculars, and requires sullying yourself with that weirdest destination in the Universe, Vegas.
But that’s me; clearly left behind in a gentler subset of my 60s generation.
But did you enjoy the concert? His music? Observing your fellow human being’s reactions to Elton? Iow, the act on stage and the theater around you?
Comment by michael — December 18, 2005 @ 3:23 pm
I think Dan pretty clearly implied that (a) except for Daniel & Rocket Man he didn’t like the music (b) he didn’t appreciate the fanatic fans, and (c) he didn’t particularly like the venue (Vegas).
I’m in the same canoe, Dan. There haven’t been folk singers like Collins/Dylan/Simon/Garfunkel/etc
since the ’70’s.
Comment by rakkity — December 18, 2005 @ 5:37 pm
I saw Elton John 2 months ago at the FleetCenterBankNorthBostonGarden place. I too went because the tickets were gratis. I had a very different experience from you. I thought he was a phenomenal piano player and a very generous performer. He puts on a good show. I’ve never been a huge fan of his music and he’s no Bon Jovi in the pulse department. I also saw Elton John in 1976 during the Bicentennial celebrations when he came out dressed as the Statue of Liberty. He’s clearly gotten better with age and he puts on a good show. No one comes close to Joni Mitchell, not Dylan (excellent though Bob Dylan is, the man sucks in concert…in my opinion..I like my artists to sound like they do on their CD’s and he sounds anything but) and can we please not put Judy Collins in the same category. That shrill voice (Amazing Grace being the exception Michael) could kill a cat. Celebrity adoration is pure fantasy and can be great fun. But only if you like the celebrity.
Comment by laRad — December 18, 2005 @ 10:21 pm
My sense is the trees (fan adoration) got in the way of the forest (music) for Dan. So put off by something so foreign. Come on back in here Dan and elaborate. And what about that Jewel concert? You weren’t warmed by the excitement Jewel’s peers had for her?
What, you didn’t like “Michael From Mountains,” or “ Both Sides Now?” Or is that Joni Mitchell…sometimes I confuse the two ; ) .
Comment by michael — December 19, 2005 @ 6:51 am
Joni’s version of Both Sides Now is superior I think because she wrote it. However it’s her original Both Sides Now (sung by yours truly at my 4th grade concert in 1969) that is best…Her voice is so different now. Joni’s version of Chelsea Morning is also better…not all that high note stuff.
Comment by laRad — December 19, 2005 @ 8:19 am
I think Mike got to the heart of it. Vegas was probably the slimy, over-the-top “trees” that marred my musical experience.
I must admit that in writing this entry — which included a visit to Elton’s website and other for lyrics and music — I was able to glimpse the “forest” and enjoyment/appreciation came through stronger.
To Chris: In including Dylan, I refer solely to his early CDs — certainly not his current music or concerts. And re Judy: What about Chelsea Morning? In My Life (I Loved You More)? Turn, Turn, Turn (To Everything There is a Season)? Maybe your eardrums and her pitch and are just incompatible?
Comment by smiling Dan — December 19, 2005 @ 9:15 am
That is a very kind way of putting it, my eardrums are incompatible with her shrill voice. She does have those beautiful blue eyes. And yes early Dylan is still so relevant…I know because my daughter listens to it. Still, when he recreates these songs in concert…I guess it is his right to do whatever he wants to his songs…they sound awful. Especially the beautiful Lay Lady Lay. This is a plus with Elton, his songs sound just like they always have.
Comment by la Rad — December 19, 2005 @ 9:50 am
I come at this from a slightly different angle.
First of all, I like Elton’s music. I like many of (but not all) of his songs. Most of what I like comes more from his recent works, but still, I have a wide repetoire of his to draw on, ‘The Last Song’ being his finest work, IMHO.
Second, I don’t so much care for the flamboyance, the performance, the glitter and glam. Not my thing, no matter who.
Third, I don’t care for concerts, no matter who. I don’t care if it’s Phil Collins, Paul Simon, Jewel, Bon Jovi, Peter Gabriel, or any of that…maybe it’s the amount of people, maybe it’s the screaming fans, maybe it’s the adulation…it’s not my thing. I have been to one concert my entire life, and that was enough to know I don’t like them. As a corollary to that, I don’t idolaize anyone either, whether it’s an author, a singer, an actor, or any of that. I aprpeciate their work, and I might be able to like them as a person, but that’s all.
But I do disagree also that loud music can still be meaningful music. I’m a crossover between Dad’s and my generation, and therefore live in both worlds, plus one entirely my own.
As for Vegas…I have no idea. Never been, although the overall concept of the place doesn’t endear me to it. 😉
Comment by Rantmaster — December 19, 2005 @ 10:53 am
Concerts aren’t the place to go to learn to like or even know an artist, and the word concert is a meaningless catch-all. Mostly here I think it’s referring to big-time production events, utterly unlike less dolled-up things (even of the scale of a Woodstock), and you either like spectacle or you don’t. If you don’t like spectacle and aren’t a fan of the artist putting it on in the first place, the night ain’t gonna rock ya.
But live music is altogether different than recorded. Yes, much like a sporting event, you can “get it” more clearly recorded or broadcast, but also like sports, you’re thus a lone source of energy and perspective. As a psyched (vs. a present but segregated) member of such an event, the energy can’t be compared, and there’s something magical knowing music’s being made right in front of you.
But I give Dan credit for following up and wondering.
And one could argue that some music — and while some would dispute the classification, denial’s tantamount to bigotry — has to be loud to BE meaningful …
Comment by el Kib — December 19, 2005 @ 11:55 am
Adam, excellent distinction: Spectacle vs. Concert!
I loved the Jewel concert you took us to. Smallish Boston Opera house, yes full of (young) adulating fans, but intimate, genuine, unchoreographed, unadorned. Just the right Loudness as I recall.
And I have enjoyed the “concerts” at the Colonial Inn. I get the difference between live and canned performance.
Sounds like Greg and I are on the same page re: Spectacle.
But I did also loved Paul Simon at the Worcester Centrum, with his Brazilian rhythm-of-the-Saints band. The dose of Spectacle was counterbalanced by sharing the music of my re-birthing years with my two sons.
Comment by smiling Dan — December 19, 2005 @ 12:57 pm
You need to come to a concert with me. Or a Red Sox game. I behave the same at both. You’ll never be the same.
Comment by laRad — December 19, 2005 @ 5:11 pm
Can you get two extra tickets?
Dan, you’re still dodging your central point which is, as I understand it, needing to feel a part of the event to fully participate in it.
Comment by michael — December 19, 2005 @ 5:32 pm
Dad remembers well the one concert I’ve been to. 🙂 Let me add a corollary to what I said: I love Paul Simon. He’s one of the first musicians I came to enjoy. I totally wanted to go see him in concert. And I enjoyed the *music*. But…
Now, it has been a long time. But what I mostly remember was that it got to the point where I felt so uncomfortable that I wasn’t enjoying the music anymore. It was the sheer number of people, the gleeful screaming, the fact that we had to stand up often just to see (or maybe there was standing room only, I don’t remember). It was all of that, and possibly other things I’m forgetting. So, maybe a bad first experience turned me off, but…
I’m forgetting I *did* go to one other concert. But this concert was a far different deal. First of all, it involved an artist that was only modestly popular (and less well known) named Sinead Lohan. Second, it was in the far less expansive Davis Square theatre: it had lots of people, to be sure, but nowhere near as many as Paul’s performance, or most others. Granted, it was offset by the fact that she wasn’t someone I knew, but the point is, by the end of it, I wanted to *buy* her CD, and did.
The lesson to be learned? Like Dad, I could probably enjoy the smaller performances. Even better would be ‘unplugged’…no huge band, small, quiet audience, just the performers and their music. Really, what I’m looking for is a music version of the G+S performances at Aggasiz. 😉
Comment by Rantmaster — December 20, 2005 @ 4:45 pm
Who new that a post I almost didn’t put up would stimulate a dialog not just between friends but between father and son?
Greg, I think we share the right balance of nature and nurture that Mike’s last point could be hitting us both between the eyes.
Mike and I have been dancing around this proposition for years:
“Needing to feel part of the event to fully participate in it.”
Greg, I think you and I share a distancing from the melee of life (perhaps to different degrees) that we both prefer intimate gatherings with friends we’ve chosen vs. faceless crowds of the great unwashed we haven’t.
Chris, I feel almost as much a Stranger in a Strange Land at Fenway as I do in Vegas. Can’t relate to either because I can’t/won’t do what either crowd mainly came to do (cheer, gamble).
As Mike well knows, I stopped reading Outside magazine years ago cause I can’t/won’t ever do the extreme sports narrated therein.
Can’t/won’t participate, can’t/won’t enjoy.
There are doubtless endless examples of how I keep my distance–even from penetrating this topic too deeply.
Comment by smiling Dan — December 21, 2005 @ 5:01 am
At the risk of creating too exclusive a dialog, how about the movies, books, events you do participate in? Or, as Adam might say, in which you do participate. It’s a lot less likely you’ll be prancing around in hyper-colored fields of flowers after you die than climbing those Outside Magazine mountains. And how about the great unwashed in the traffic jam on route 95 to which you were passing your bottle of red wine?
It IS very cool to see how similar you and Greg are. The physical resemblance between you and Jim often overshadows the genes you’ve passed down to Number 2 son.
Comment by Michael — December 21, 2005 @ 9:34 am
WHAT?! You got to see that show! WOW. I would gladly pay the $250 to see him live and in person. He is a faboulus performer and entertainer. He is not afraid of what people think of him or say about him (less a few lawsuits against tabloids).
He is as GAY as GAY is and so talented.
I adore the performers who seem to truly enjoy what they do – entertain. Elton, Cher, Barbara S., Bette Midler – Hmm…
Anyway – next time you have free tickets – call me – I’ll fly out for the show!
Now I also loved the Paul Simon concert back in 1989? 90? I dunno – it was a long time ago…
Comment by CoffeeBoy — December 21, 2005 @ 3:20 pm
Fascinating. Even at a sporting event you don’t feel part of the group. Any sport? Because baseball can be like paint drying for some people so I imagine those people would avoid going. I can see myself being like that at a soccer game…disinterested. One good thing about not being a fanatic is you don’t get utterly devestated when your favorite player departs so much so that you eat all kinds of chocolate that you don’t even like.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Johnny-Damon-Soul_W0QQitemZ5648873584QQcategoryZ2022QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Comment by laRad — December 21, 2005 @ 5:21 pm
Actually, that soul already sold, and for a lot less than $99.99M … I wonder what he’ll look like with his regulation Steinbrenner hair (big doubletake on Bellhorn … ). It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I don’t feel fine).
Comment by el Kib — December 21, 2005 @ 5:56 pm
eBay unlisted it!! He looks fabulous without the long hair: http://bostondirtdogs.boston.com/Headline_Archives/2005/12/hair_today_gone_1.html
But maybe like Samson when he cuts it all off….
Comment by LaRad — December 21, 2005 @ 8:13 pm
Chris, true of any sport. That is, unless it’s the World Series and either Sox team (or another underdog) is in it, and I’m watching it with friends or alone. I don’t even like a party with more than 8 people, and only that many if I know them all.
I do prefer soccer over baseball, ever. My Mexican genes?
Jim, wish I coulda given you my Piano tickets. But then what would have I had to blog about? And I’m glad *one* of you enjoyed Paul Simon as much as I did, of so many tears ago…
Comment by smiling Dan — December 22, 2005 @ 7:15 pm
Now THERE is Freudian slip.
Mike’s Saga (for a while) was closing on the backside, but no more.
Comment by michael — December 22, 2005 @ 7:34 pm
Not a slip at all. A twist on a hackneyed phrase. And truer.
Comment by smiling Dan — December 23, 2005 @ 10:48 am