Ever the
showman, Elton embraces Las Vegas
style
By Edna
Gundersen
USA TODAY
Posted
2/15/2004 10:50 PM
LAS VEGAS — Nobody loses
in Elton John's high-stakes gambol.
After selling 200 million
albums, the 56-year-old icon has reached the age and stage when many
superstars
hit Las Vegas to cash in on nostalgia. Instead, John is bucking the
odds
with an ambitious and dicey revue.
The Red Piano, named after
his lacquered Yamaha grand, is too stately a title for this
eye-popping,
jaw-dropping spree (**** out of four), which opened Friday night at the
4,100-seat Colosseum in Caesars Palace.
Committing to 75 shows over
three years, John is one of Celine Dion's vacation stand-ins at the $95
million venue built specifically for the Canadian diva. He's no second
banana. He and photographer David LaChappelle deliver a first-rate
technical
knockout that masterfully synchronizes sound and vision.
The show takes full advantage
of John's strengths as a natural showman, skilled pianist and strong
singer
(though he no longer chases the high notes in tunes such as Tiny
Dancer).
Music dominates as he and his band barrel through 15 songs in 100
minutes,
yet John nearly vanishes in the foreground while a visual smorgasbord
unfolds
on a monster LED screen.
LaChappelle, Red Piano's
director and designer, bombards the senses with brilliant video
montages
and riveting short films. Instead of distracting attention from John's
melodic rock and timeless pop balladry, the eye candy sharpens the
focus
on music by plugging into its themes and emotions.
During Philadelphia Freedom,
psychedelic footage rolls amid images of rhythmic human movement, from
body builders and showgirls to go-go dancers and drum majorettes. The
alienation
of Rocket Man is conveyed in a backstage docudrama with Justin
Timberlake
as a young Elton besieged by groupies, reporters, photographers and
hangers-on,
shot in slo-mo to drive home the sense of isolation and claustrophobia.
Daniel, its vague lyrics
wed to the saga of a sleeping boy aging into a dying soldier, has a
touching
beauty. I Want Love and Your Song also imbue poignancy, as does Candle
in the Wind, restored as a love letter to Marilyn Monroe, who is
portrayed
by a dead ringer as playful, vulnerable and tragic.
The show, to be presented
nowhere else, draws inspiration from the decadent glitz of Sin City,
seen
distressed and undressed in a stage strewn with giant neon fixtures and
puerile but whimsical inflatables of big breasts, garter-clad legs,
lips,
a hot dog, ice cream cone and suggestively posed bananas and cherries.
Gloriously tacky Vegas wedding chapels, Elvis impersonators and
gamblers
decorate Pinball Wizard. And in the most buzzed-about number, The Bitch
Is Back finds Pamela Anderson all too convincing as a pole-dancing
stripper
in pasties and rhinestones. The choreography is less salacious but more
captivating in Don't Let the Sun Go Downon Me and the raucous Saturday
Night's Alright for Fighting.
Chunks of The Red Piano could
be as garish and hollow as the Vegas Strip if not for the warmth and
sturdiness
of John's music. When the glitter settles, Sir Elton is still standing
as one of pop's indestructible talents.
|
POP MUSIC
REVIEW
John's Vegas show
proves a big winner
Elton John continues to
share his music
live with passion and warmth.
By Robert
Hilburn
LA Times
Staff Writer
February 16, 2004
LAS VEGAS — The oldest truism
in this gambling citadel is that the odds always favor the house, and
that
was never more the case than over the weekend when Caesars Palace put
Elton
John's name on the marquee of its 4,100-seat Colosseum.
Few performers in modern
pop have been as consistently rewarding on stage as this Englishman
whose
most compelling numbers, written with lyricist Bernie Taupin, have
spoken
about the search for companionship and love with an accessibility and
grace
that have made them part of our cultural fabric.
Whether performing in the
sometimes zany costumes of his early days or in his recent, more
straightforward,
recital fashion, John has shared his music live with a passion and
warmth
that have made the arena shows consistently joyful.
But John's new "The Red Piano"
show, which opened Friday, is a triumphant step forward for both him
and
Las Vegas. In a 90-minute set directed and designed by David
LaChappelle,
the production employs ambitious, original video footage on John's
songs
in ways that are alternately touching and inspiring.
For contemporary pop-rock
performers who have long worried that they would have to eliminate some
of the challenging elements of their music to appeal consistently to
the
mainstream Las Vegas crowd, the sophistication and daring of this show
should be reassuring and eye-opening.
Sometimes the new footage,
which is shown on a towering screen at the rear of the stage, helps us
to better understand a song — especially the 1973 ballad
"Daniel." Through
video images as graceful as a ballet, we see that Daniel is killed in
battle,
something never clear in the song itself.
At other times in "The Red
Piano," the images illustrate how the emotion of a song can apply
equally
to a totally different situation. Rather than show more scenes of
someone
isolated in space, the video accompanying "Rocket Man" deals with the
way
a pop star can be isolated by fame.
As John and his five-piece
band play the song, the footage follows Justin Timberlake, dressed like
a young Elton, through a Dante's freak show of starstruck hangers-on
and
thrill-seekers backstage, a hard-boiled manager (played by Pee-wee
Herman
creator Paul Reubens) by his side.
To accompany "Candle in the
Wind," however, the images go straight to the song's original subject,
Marilyn Monroe, as a hauntingly convincing look-alike goes through
scenes
that show the star slowly breaking down under professional and personal
demands. Not every video matches the songs as perfectly as these, but
en
masse the footage, whether employing psychedelic images or a modern
dance
motif, underscores the theme of the search for love in its broadest
sense,
from personal relationships to social compassion.
Booking John is actually
the second roll of the dice for Caesars. The first was stepping away
from
the production theme-show trend of recent years and returning to the
contemporary
pop star emphasis that built the city's entertainment reputation,
thanks
to such dynamic showroom figures as Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.
Rather than book today's
stars into small showrooms on a rotating basis, however, Caesars took
the
bold step of building the $95-million Colosseum and signing Celine Dion
to appear there five nights a week for three years.
Though many reviews were
harsh when Dion's lavish show, designed by Cirque du Soleil wizard
Franco
Dragone, opened last March, business has been phenomenal. Ticket
revenue
has already hit $100 million.
John becomes the second Colosseum
regular, enabling Dion to have a few weeks off. He'll appear at least
25
nights a year for three years. Like Dion, John even has his own retail
store in the hotel, where you can find everything from CDs and T-shirts
to a bobble-head doll and a tiny diamond-crested piano that costs
$26,000.
Ticket demand has been so
strong the hotel has already signed John for another 15 nights this
year.
After seeing this show, they probably wish they had talked him into
doing
even more than the 40 dates.
From the opening moments
Friday, John made it clear this show was not going to be Vegas
middle-brow.
Rather than open with a safe,
sing-along ballad, John and his five-piece band, featuring longtime
sidekicks
Nigel Olsson on drums and Davey Johnstone on guitar, started off with a
roar by playing two of John's rowdiest and most aggressive numbers,
"Bennie
and the Jets" and "Philadelphia Freedom."
In then switching to a ballad,
he sidestepped the bigger '70s hits in favor of "Believe," a
lesser-known
1995 number whose message of brotherhood and love helped defined the
evening's
theme.
John didn't rely only on
video footage for visuals. When he and the band walked on, E-L-T-O-N
was
spelled out in garish neon signs that are as much a Las Vegas trademark
as roulette wheels and video poker machines. Scattered around the stage
were other neon teasers referring to various other Las Vegas
enterprises,
from pawn shops to quickie marriages.
For the encore, John, alone
on stage with his piano, said goodnight, fittingly, with "Your Song,"
which
was his first U.S. hit 34 years ago — a sweet, intimate
moment that reminded
the audience that it's the music, still, that matters most.
The Colosseum may be known
as the house that Dion built, but the ambition and artistry of John's
show
is what gives the room its first "must see."
|
|
Elton john's
Vegas Vacation
Rolling
Stone Magazine, Issue 944
David Handelman
“We
wanted to change the kind off show being done in Vegas,” says
Elton
John, who launched a three-year, estimated $74 million-grossing
engagement at Caesars Palace on February 13th. “We wanted to
do
something that had an edge to it.” Indeed, the opening show
was a
musical and visual tour de force, with bare breasts, a little ballet
and lots of classic Elton, including “Bennie and the
jets” and “Rocket
man.” Tickets for The Red Piano – the next show is
scheduled for March
23rd – are selling briskly. And for those who want more, an
autographed
red piano is available…for $30,000.
Full
review
The
flamboyant rocker conquers Sin City with visual flair
“This
is me,” Elton John told his opening-night Las Vegas audience,
then pointed to a life-size effigy of his gaudy 1970s self that had
just flown down from the rafters. “And that,” he
said, “was me.”
That
was a canny summation of Sir Elton’s surprisingly personable
and energetic show, which will play in the Colosseum at Caesar's Palace
at least seventy-five times in the next three years during Celine
Dion’s nights off.
When
the gig was announced, it seemed inevitable, and given John’s
legendary showmanship and the aging of his boomer fan base, maybe a wee
bit, you know, sad. But John and his directory-designer, David
LaChapelle, fashioned a dizzying sexy, emotional spectacle that both
parodied expectations about Vegas glitz and put new life and meaning
into fifteen of John’s strongest songs.
John, a
full-figured fifty-six, has a richer, deeper voice these
days, and a masterful keyboard dexterity, but he no longer runs around
the stage or tosses piano benches. For pizzazz, LaChapelle added a
blend of mesmerizing big-screen videos and self-consciously ridiculous
inflatable objects to the show, including squirting breasts and
countless phallic symbols. The videos varied, from Pamela Anderson
pole-dancing to black-and-white photojournalism of Mary Ellen Mark, to
a blinding time-lapse encapsulation of Sin City for “Pinball
Wizard.”
The most affecting clip was choreographed by John Byrne, an alluring,
violent lovers’ ballet set to “Don’t Let
the Sun Go Down on Me.”
Despite the visual excess, John never appeared overwhelmed. Actually,
he hadn’t sounded this good in years, starting from the
rockin’
honky-tonk solo on the opener, “Bennie and the
Jets,” on through his
reinvention of “Rocket Man,” which sounded more
soulful and guttural
than the recorded version. In the end, the screens were turned off and
John sat alone at the piano, surrounded by inflatable letters spelling
out LOVE, singing "Your Song" with gusto and passion.
Here's
hoping Celine takes more days off.
|
TOP 10 VEGAS
SHOWS OF 2004:
John reinterprets classic songs in artistic show at Caesars Palace
By MIKE WEATHERFORD
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Elton
John's "The Red Piano" at Caesars Palace succeeds as art in its own
right while celebrating a great career.
A game of semantics clears the way for Elton John's pop-art spectacle
to be the most exciting show of 2004.
Cirque
du Soleil's "Ka" has been open to ticket-buyers since
Thanksgiving weekend. But it declared itself to be in "previews" until
Feb. 3, and thus not officially a finished product until 2005.
No
matter how they split hairs, it will soon be clear that "Ka" is the
most significant thing to happen on the Strip this year. Or in a long
time.
But John
is hardly a consolation prize. Celine Dion created the new
model of resident headliner that Barry Manilow will glom onto next
year. But John is the one who really seems to enjoy his stretches in
the Colosseum.
"The Red
Piano" better fulfilled expectations than the year's other big entry,
the Queen catalog musical "We Will Rock You."
The
theatrical musical is well sung and handsomely staged, but doesn't
live up to the talent involved and people don't seem to be talking it
up. If only it had been "Spamalot," the new Monty Python musical,
instead.
All
three shows do set the bar higher on the Strip, where there are now
at least a dozen A-list productions; those that fell from last year's
list don't indicate a drop in quality as much as an attempt to vary the
list.
Next
year brings "Avenue Q" and Franco Dragone's "Le Reve" at Wynn Las
Vegas. But, as they say in "Avenue Q," these will do "for now":
1
Elton John, Caesars Palace -- True, the legend takes a
subordinate role to a mesmerizing video show by David LaChapelle. And
for tickets topping out at $281, he could sing a few more songs. But
the larger truth is as big as the giant screen: a showcase that manages
to reinterpret classic songs and succeed as art in its own right while
celebrating a career that's still moving forward.
2
"O," Bellagio -- Usurped by its new "Ka," Cirque du Soleil's
water show ends a six-year run as the cutting edge of technology on the
Strip. But with "Ka" more in the realm of grand opera, this one stands
as the apex of the dreamlike surrealism that made us love Cirque to
begin with.
3
"Mamma Mia!" at Mandalay Bay -- It took "We Will Rock You" to
make us appreciate how the creators of "Mamma Mia!" made the idea of
the back catalog musical only look easy.
4
"Mystere," Treasure Island -- Eleven years old this weekend,
"Mystere" still offers a deft blend of gripping acrobatics and playful
European-style clowning.
5
Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Stardust -- You anticipated
the nostalgia and the "last of their old-Vegas kind" part. What you
maybe didn't expect was that they still sound so good.
6
Clint Holmes, Harrah's Las Vegas -- Amid shows crammed with
automation, the "down front" school of entertainment survives through a
showman who keeps the classic Vegas spirit alive without invoking
nostalgia.
7
The Second City, Flamingo -- Reintroduce yourself to sketch
comedy, a format diluted on TV by the forced efforts of fully costumed
late shows. This quintet puts the vitality back as it combines theater
with the immediacy of stand-up comedy.
8
"The Fashionistas," Krave nightclub -- Thanks to the deep
pockets of creator John Stagliano, this mondo-bizarro adult dance revue
is a distinctly personal vision and the rare chance to see what can be
created outside of corporate commercial concerns.
9
Mac King, Harrah's Las Vegas -- The comic magician moved into
a larger Harrah's venue this summer, but remains a value-priced
alternative to triple-digit tickets while still offering a
one-of-a-kind stage persona.
10
Celine Dion, Caesars Palace -- The Canadian superstar feels
more at home on her colossal stage now than last year, and more in
charge of it. Maybe next year we'll see still more personality emerge
from a showcase that lives up to the hype, but is stuffed to the point
of distraction.
|
|
Las Vegas Life
April 2004
Vegas Moment
To Sir With Love
“Holy sh-! Only in Las Vegas!” That
phrase was heard more than a few
times during Elton John’s debut of The Red Piano, as a giant
fruit
inflated, a videotaped Pamela Anderson pole-danced to the
“The Bitch is
Back,” and a dizzying montage of Vegas scenes flew across
giant screens
at the Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace. With David LaChapelle as
producer
and Sir Elton as performer, the February show was perhaps one of the
Entertainment Capital of the World’s best moments. John will
play at
least 75 dates over the next three years in the 4, 100-seat arena,
including several this month.
|
Variety
Elton John: The Red Piano
By PHIL GALLO
Elton John has achieved a rare pop-music
feat in his Vegas-only show:
With David LaChappelle, he has created a career overview piece that's
visually stimulating and as artistically sound as it is commercial.
Driving force in "The Red Piano" is a mammoth LED screen filled with
compelling video images that, at their best, detail John's musical
journey and place him in the context of pop culture over the last 30
years. Collectively it's as elaborate as his mid-'70s costume-heavy
shows and, thanks to the consistently high quality and execution of the
material, more spectacular than the outings of his heyday. This is a
show people will talk about.
Simultaneously bigger than life and
intimate, John's opening-night
performance was inspired and graceful. Part of that's due to the fact
that the Colosseum is a jewel box compared to the arenas he has been
playing with Billy Joel the last few years as he coasted his way
through hits. A month shy of his 57th birthday, John is in a
comfortable place in Vegas: The images on the screen serve to remind us
of his wackier days and the legendary Dodger Stadium concert, saving
him the effort he usually puts into clowning around. It allows him to
focus on being a serious performer.
His command of the lower register in which
he's been singing since
throat surgery 17 years ago has never been better, his song selection
perfect for his vocals. In ballads such as "Don't Let the Sun Go Down
on Me" and "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues," the hint of
gravel in his voice makes for a particularly affecting performance. As
he made clear in his mid-'90s perfs, John is a stylistically varied and
intriguing piano player.The set, which will be changed every so often,
is dominated by '70s hits penned with Bernie Taupin; 12 of the show's
15 songs placed in the U.S. top 12, and two that didn't, "Tiny Dancer"
and Pete Townshend's "Pinball Wizard" (with a snippet of "I Can't
Explain" thrown in), are standards in John's canon. He also included "I
Want Love," the single from his last album, the superb yet overlooked
"Songs From the West Coast," and promised a new album in September
(though he did not include any material from it or his film work).
Particularly for those seated in the
balconies, the eye is drawn to
the video screen that dwarfs John and his ace quintet rather than the
performer at the stage-right red piano. The opener, "Bennie and the
Jets," is played before an "ELTON" sign of neon letters seemingly
removed from older casinos -- the "E" has the look of Elvis at the
Hilton, the "T" sparkles like Barbary Coast signage. An assortment of
neon signs also littered the stage and lit up on occasion.
On the second song, the simple imagery
gives way to an explosion of
eye candy. As John belts out "Philadelphia Freedom," multiple images of
the Chrysler Building take off as rockets and stream into a parade of
1960s and '70s images -- John in oversized glasses and glitter, porn
shots, men kissing, Beatlemania and so on.
In case it wasn't clear to all, John
referred to the music and the
videos by simply stating, "This is me. That was me."LaChappelle, a
photographer by trade, mixes and matches technique and purpose with the
videos. On "Daniel," he plays storyteller and clarifies the song's
meaning -- it's about a solider killed in war -- and he reclaims
"Candle in the Wind" for Marilyn Monroe, using a look-alike to romp
through the poses inspired by Bert Stern's photo book "The Complete
Last Sitting." Diane Arbus-inspired black-and-whites accompany "I Guess
That's Why They Call it the Blues"; Pamela Anderson, in pasties and a
sparkling waist-level piece of clothing, shows her pole-dancing skills
behind "The Bitch Is Back," the one musicvideo combo that's pure
fun.Inflatable set pieces, limited at first to crossed legs on one side
and enormous breasts on the other, get out of control toward the end of
the night as apples, bananas, a hot dog and a spilled ice cream cone
fill the stage while the band goes uptempo with "I'm Still Standing"
and "Saturday Night's All Right for Fighting." It's overblown sexual
imagery -- one could say a pure Vegas moment -- but it makes the
evening's close a bit clumsy. As those pieces deflate and a
heart-shaped L, V and E inflate, John returns to the stage and lets the
audience know the next tune, "Your Song," is the closer.
Celine Dion had a similar dilemma when she
opened the Colosseum and
her entourage took bows with no musical accompaniment. It has since
been changed.Aside from that minor speed bump, though, it is
fascinating how LaChappelle and John's use of the space is so
completely different from that of Dion's show. John and band stay put
for the bulk of the 95 minutes, as opposed to the movement of Dion and
her dancers.
Conceptually, LaChappelle and John ask the audience
to view songs in
a new light, even if that means disturbing the concertgoer with a
ballet to domestic abuse on "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" or
"Rocket Man" showing 1970s Elton as a beleaguered rock star.John
currently is booked for 91 shows over the next three years; he'll do 41
in 2004.Opening-night crowd include Michael Douglas, Catherine
Zeta-Jones, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, Pamela Anderson, Christina
Aguilera, Kathy Griffin and Sharon Osbourne |
