John dazzles with a concert of classics
Elton John
TD Banknorth Garden, Boston, Massachusetts
September 16, 2005
by Marc Hirsh

originally published in The Boston Globe, September 19, 2005

The Elton John that walked onstage at the TD Banknorth Garden on Friday night was a man with a problem. He had a relatively new album to promote (last year’s Peachtree Road), while a new deluxe reissue of 1975’s Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy was just released. And certainly his fans wanted to hear the songs that made him a star. So, faced with three distinct shows that he could possibly play, he played all of them. No problem.

Since John has abandoned the flamboyance of his 1970s peak, a three-hour-plus show with three discrete parts show may have been his way of matching the excess of his past. A light screen behind the musicians featured some occasionally perplexing images (a slithering snake during “Bitter Fingers,” dice, hearts and an alien head for “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting”) and John hopped onto his piano during “The Bitch Is Back,” lounging and pointing up while the word “BITCH” flashed above him, but the otherwise basic stage setup placed the focus on music instead of spectacle.

Beginning with eight songs from Peachtree, John all but apologized for subjecting the audience to unfamiliar material, but the response betrayed little impatience. Still, the mood noticeably shifted as John turned his attention to the autobiographical Captain Fantastic, playing the album almost in its entirety (only “Tower Of Babel” was missing). With the help of a nine-piece choir and a band whose drummer Nigel Olsson and guitarist Davey Johnstone have rarely left John’s side in more than thirty years, the songs gained a gravity that eluded the newer material, especially on “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” and the remarkably plangent “We All Fall In Love Sometimes”/“Curtains.”

From there on out, John simply cranked out one classic after another for nearly two hours, from an excellent “Funeral For A Friend (Love Lies Bleeding)” to a sweetly restrained “Your Song.” John’s voice has noticeably deepened over the years, and if there were high notes in “Crocodile Rock,” “Tiny Dancer” and “Bennie And The Jets” that he didn’t even attempt, his vocals were still strong and rich. His piano playing was undiminished as well, as made clear by his solo at the end of “Bennie,” his gospel-inflected intro to “Take Me To The Pilot,” and the escalating series of joint solos that he and Johnstone took as the band slowly built behind them during a magnificent extended coda of “Rocket Man.”