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Thankfully, the rain held off during a fantastic Elton John concert at the Essex Junction fairgrounds on July 21. 2008. The concert started off with an old classic, Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding and continued on at full steam for the rest of the night. For a guy in his sixties, you wouldn’t know it. Elton John still has a few acrobatic tricks left and he didn’t hesitate to use them. The music itself was fantastic and his voice only began to show signs of wearing out during the beginning of the finale. His voice was a bit hoarse on his last DVD, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that was not the case during this performance.

Near the end of the concert, I was down front shooting some video near the stage. All of the sudden, all hell broke loose and the crowd rushed to the front of the stage. The security guy tried to restrain people but he was soon overwhelmed by the crowd. I was actually pushed to the front of the stage by the crowd but unfortunately, my video camera battery died just as I was 6 feet away from Elton John, preparing for some close-up shots.
After a few minutes, I struggled back through the crowd to my seat. Better to leave the space for the number of kids scrambling to get to the stage for autographs. I was surprised to see Elton John take several minutes to autograph everyone’s items just before the finale and at the end of the show. Most artists are pretty aloof and don’t bother to interact with the audience. To see a legendary performer such as Elton John take the time to be so gracious with his fans was the icing on the cake after one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended.
Sir Elton John indeed!

Got to see half of Pink Floyd (in the form of David Gilmour and Richard Wright) and a spectacular laser show at Radio City Music Hall in NYC on 4/4/06. Flew down to JFK just hours before the last snowstorm in northern Vermont to a nice sunny day in Manhattan. Quite a treat and the side trip to Ferraro’s in Little Italy for cannolis wasn’t too shabby either!

As for the concert (the first of just a few in the USA) things got off to a rocky start. Apparently a group of overzealous fans waited at JFK for Gilmour and his entourage to arrive and hounded him and other band members for autographs. They were traveling with their families and I guess the kids got a bit scared. One of them was assaulted by a “fan”. Nice welcome huh?

As for the concert itself, I was pretty lucky considering what most people went through. I had a second row ticket and was able to stand at the edge of the stage where most people were fairly well behaved except for one or two morons. Up in the mezzanine and other seats, there were a few fights, drunks and people smoking dope. Listening to a bootleg from this show, it’s pretty apparent that the NYC vocabulary is limited to “F*** You!” this and that for just about all occasions. Pretty sad. I’ll never understand why some people will pay big bucks for concert tickets only to attend and act like boorish idiots at every opportunity. I think next time I’ll skip New York though and head for a more civilized city where people actually go to a concert to enjoy it not make asses of themselves. If you want to read more about the infamous opening night in New York City, read the blog at www.davidgilmour.com

So much for the crowd festivities! The concert itself was absolutely spectacular. The first half was David Gimlour’s new album (the whole thing with special guests Dave Crosby and Graham Nash). The second half was all Pink Floyd with lasers, fog and sonic perfection. Probably the best concert I’ve ever been to and well worth the trip. Oh yeah, I know people in NYC are supposed to rude, etc. but everyone we met at hotels, restaurants, etc. were very nice. Must be all the bad ones found their way into the concert.