Back to basics
Matthew d'Ancona What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. But not with Sir Elton John, who last week brought the Red Piano Show that has thrilled audiences at Caesar's Palace for two years to London's 02 Centre. While not yet etched in legend quite as deeply as Sinatra's residency at the Sands, or Elvis's performances at the Las Vegas Hilton, this was still pretty amazing stuff, not least because this particular knight was only performing on this particular night.
Sir Elton has made a bit of a thing in recent years of going 'back to basics', especially with his excellent 2001 album, Songs from the West Coast, which pared down to its essentials the style he has developed with his lyricist Bernie Taupin since their first recording, 'Scarecrow', in 1967. But there is nothing pared down about the Red Piano Show, his collaboration with the flamboyant fashion photographer David LaChapelle.
The man himself, once a drug-crazed demon in spectacles and platform boots, bouncing and stomping his way through a set, sauntered to his scarlet Yamaha keyboard and pretty much stayed there for the duration of the show. But that was fine by the 20,000 punters at Greenwich, who (if the songs themselves were not enough) had plenty to keep them occupied on the giant video screens behind, louche, dramatic and ingenious images competing for their attention like an open day at a high-tech bordello organised by a couple of billionaires.
To mention but a few: pictures of naked girls during 'Philadelphia Freedom' (I used to be a rolling stone/ You know if the cause was right/ I'd leave to find the answer on the road'), a haunting fight scene while he sang 'Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me', Justin Timberlake as a younger version of Elton in stripy suit, Pamela Anderson pole dancing, big floaty roses to accompany the ballad 'Believe'.
He has been around so long, and done so much, has the man born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, that the idea of a greatest hits show is almost meaningless. When you have sold more than 250 million albums, and helped provide the soundtrack to not one but two generations, all you can hope as a performer is that you do not let down those who have come to hear their favourites. It is a daunting pressure, I imagine: to lose control of a melody you have written as it implants itself in a million memories, and (every time it is played) triggers a million different associations.
But he pulls it off. The reason, vividly on display in this performance, is twofold: he still loves the music as much as he would if he were playing it in a pub, and, at 60, can still play it with aggressive virtuosity. How do you sing 'Candle in the Wind' almost ten years to the day since you held court to the world at Diana's funeral with a customised version of the song? Answer: by playing the original, with a Monroe lookalike on screen behind you, knowing that this is what we have really come to hear, knowing that any reference to the Princess would sound both kitschy and pious.
Mind you, you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of this particular rock god. He dedicated 'Tiny Dancer' to Jane Tomlinson, and then, quite scarily, said that the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Britney could learn a thing or two from her. Pop stars often issue embarrassing ex cathedra judgments from the microphone but this was something much more formidable: a great National Treasure expressing his disapproval of the younger generation and their shenanigans. You could have heard a brooch pin drop.
Back to business, the latter part of the set embraced a razor-sharp 'Pinball Wizard', 'The Bitch is Back' and `I'm Still Standing' (up there, these days, with Gloria Gaynor's 'I Will Survive' as a karaoke anthem for the jilted). By now, we had got to the Very Large Bananas on Stage phase of the show, but it all seemed perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the event. 'Your Song' was an excellent encore, but then a show played by a performer this majestic is really one long encore.
For, after all these years, 'Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting' still sounds pretty bloody fantastic on a Wednesday. So often is Elton John described as the Queen Mother of pop that one can easily forget the simpler truth that he is, and has long been, its king.
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