Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC: Tuesday evening we headed down to Tacoma during a rainstorm and rush hour. Such fun! We took every country road between our place and the Tacoma Dome you can imagine. We never got on Interstate 5, if you can believe that. 

It took over an hour for what should have been a 30 minute drive, but we were parked by 7 p.m. Rather than stand in the Tacoma Dome drinking $11 sodas and such, I had the foresight to suggest we bring our own concessions. So we sat in the car and had a 'tailgate' party for a half hour before walking in a light rain toward the venue and didn't buy a single drink or snack inside. Major money saved!

It started raining seriously while we were in the ingress line. Once we finally got in, Job 1 was finding bathrooms. We walked around until we found a restroom with a shortish line. For CJ and Christian it was no trouble, of course. The women's rooms were a different story. So, Annabelle and I got 'creative' and used stalls in a men's room that had been partially commandeered by women. 

We got to our cheap/not good seats (literally in the middle of a 40-seat wide row) at 8:05. I'll be darned if Elton didn't start at 8:09. He wasn't messing around!

I'll share CJ's review of the show first. 

In September 2018, veteran English glam rock musician Elton John embarked on the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour, which is scheduled to last 3 years and include over 300 concerts across at least 3 different continents. On September 17th and 18th 2019, slightly over a year after the start of the tour, Elton John played two concerts at the Tacoma Dome, one of the largest concert venues in the Pacific Northwest. We bought tickets to the show several months in advance, and, unsurprisingly, it sold out very quickly.

After wading through the sea of humanity in and outside of the venue to get to our seats, we waited until 8 P.M. for the concert to start. After emerging from backstage, Elton John opened his set with Bennie and the Jets, one of his most famous songs. It was... odd, to say the least. The tempo was noticeably slowed down from the original recording, Elton appeared to have difficulty enunciating parts of the song, not helped by the Tacoma Dome's terrible acoustics, and the performance of the song was overall pretty underwhelming. Interestingly enough, some of the first songs on the setlist (including Bennie and the Jets) were some of his biggest hits, among them I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues and Tiny Dancer. Some of the songs (especially in the middle of his set) were deep cuts, particularly from his 1973 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road LP.
As with the very first song on the set, throughout the concert, the general vibe of the performance seemed to be very "uneven" (to quote my mother). I can only wonder if Elton John's difficulty with enunciation was a one-off fluke of the concert we went to, or if this has occurred for the rest of the tour prior. Nevertheless, it was pleasant to hear him perform classic hits like Rocket Man and Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (even amongst self-indulgent numbers like Indian Sunset.)

While the concert was enjoyable overall and I'm definitely glad I went, it was a shame to see many of the underwhelming aspects of Elton John's performance.

Here's what Annabelle had to say about the show. ...

Elton John’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour recently made a stop at the Tacoma Dome for two nights. My family and I went to one of these shows a few days ago. The weather outside was terribly rainy, which made standing in line a bit unbearable. Once we were inside, we noticed that the show was completely sold out. There were people packed into every section, which was to be expected with how big of a name Elton John is.

Once the show proper started, it became exceedingly obvious that Elton John didn’t have the same ability to sing that he used to. Certain songs sounded like much slower versions of themselves and any held notes were delegated to the backup vocalists. The music sometimes even drowned out the lyrics, which made things even harder to understand. Picking up the slack in the musical category were the percussionists, who did a spectacular job with both showmanship and staying on tempo (aside from one out-of-place tambourine solo that came out of almost nowhere, but that was the only deviation). The visuals on the stage screen were definitely confusing and didn’t seem to match the song at times, but others made up for it with good editing and eye-grabbing colors. Overall, the concert was somewhat mediocre and just a bit below expectation. The years have certainly been getting to Elton John, but he continues to tour with some of the same band mates he’s had since the '70s and playing to sold out stadiums.  

Tough critics, those kids. ;) 

My thoughts? I have mulled over a one word summation to the performance. I have settled on "uneven." (The Seattle Times' review was much more generous.)  The concert got off to a terrible start, IMHO. Sir Elton opened with Bennie and the Jets. It was a real clunker, to my ear. The timing was off, it was out of tune at times, and there were plenty of incoherent lyrics. IIt felt like a bad cruise ship version of Elton John or something. ... I was seriously questioning my reasons for being there and wondering how long I wanted to stay. There were some things I'm still trying to figure out, like why the hit "Daniel" was played with a happy reggae beat whilst the image of a dying soldier gasping for breath was projected on the screen along with World War II footage. It just didn't compute. Other times, the super high def, super big screen was a wonderful tool, including contemporary dancers during "Philadelphia Freedom," and campy dueling drag queens during "Bitch is Back."

Fortunately, as the show progressed, things improved. That said, it was clear which songs Elton wanted to do, and which ones he'd prefer to never sing again. At times, it felt so forced. Almost like a political rally. Elton would get through a song and stand up and point at various places in the audience, expecting them to applaud adoringly in return (they did). That seemed so perfunctory. 

There were 'moments' though. Like when Elton was talking about his sobriety, and his AIDS foundation. He actually cried real tears when talking about retiring and what he'd miss, but stressed that his family came first now.

One big plus: The backing band was *fantastic.* I thought it was cool that they were all 'mature adults,' (guessing 70-plus) like him. 

Regarding the 'scene,' the place was PACKED. I've never seen the Tacoma Dome like that. Fortunately, our immediate neighbors were mostly tolerable. I still will never abide annoying people who apparently think they're in their living rooms and can talk loudly the entire show, like no one else is around. So freaking self absorbed.

Overall, I'm glad we went for $59 apiece, plus &^*$% Ticketmaster 'service' charges. I would not be so glad if I'd paid much more than that.

GAMEY: I don't post about it much, but we continue to play board and card games on a regular basis. Yesterday, we gave the game "Goosebumps" a go for the first time.

It's based on the popular R.L. Stine spooky novels for young readers. The game play was sort of like Candyland meets Sorry, where you try to progress your character on a path, often knocking other characters back along the way. 

It was semi-entertaining for the first five minutes, but as we continued to slog along, all of us were just wishing it would end. Overall, I think 'repetitive and frustrating' is how I'd describe this game. It's not one we'll play again.