Elton John and Billy Joel

It was awesome.  It did not rain.  It was also very different from regular concerts, in part I think because they had such different performing styles.

 

First they played together a set of songs, and it was kind of cool to hear the other interpret the vocals of their friends song. 

 

Then Elton had a set.  Sir Elton does not talk, he plays.  He does not set up songs, he doesn't tell stories about them, he doesn't say that it is one of his favorites, he just sings.  At MOST he will mention the album that the song came off of.  Instead he relys on the songs to do the entertaining, well the songs and the stellar musical performance of himself and his band (some of which seem to have been with him for many, many years), and it works.  This shouldn't be surprising because the man has a lot of hits, so he can play a small subset of them and not even leave the realm of MEGA-hit.  He is an amazing pianist and it is super cool to here 15,000 plus people sing Tiny Dancer.

 

Then Billy had a set.  He talks.  He talks a lot.  He has a lot of schtick.  He had a flyswatter which he enjoyed waving at imaginery flies.  He had jokes.  He made sort of sad jokes and references to his current divorce.  It made me a little sad for him.  His talking and schtick seemed to be a way for him to get more into his playing.  His piano theatrics are awesome, and I really love a lot of his songs.  And some of the songs I love are more fun live, like "Angry Young Man" mostly because the piano theatrics are able to be indulged live in a way they couldn't be on a studio.

 

Then they played together, and that was wonderful!  In their final set together they indulged in a lot more dueling piano business.  Both men are great musicians and it was very exciting to see this.

 

I think that I enjoyed Billy more, and I think it was because although both men deviated in the live act from the studio versions of their song, Billy did it in a big, big way that worked very well in a large open air stadium venue whereas Elton did it in a quieter, more musically complicated way that would've lent itself better to the kind of performing space where the sound and acoustics could be more carefully controlled (smaller, indoor places that are concert halls and maybe not sports arenas).  I actually think he would be incredible to see in like a little cabaret venue or you know hanging out around his grand piano at his house.  I'll let you know when he invties me over for that.