I felt it was only appropriate to adjust the title a little bit. I think when George Michael said those words Elton wasn't yet knighted. I could be wrong though. You might be shocked to find out that this concert was two years in the making.
I think I purchased the tickets in 2019 and we were supposed to see Elton John on his "Farewell Yellow Brick Road" tour in April or May of 2020. Then of course Covid came along and threw all of those plans into chaos.
Unlike some of the other shows we had tickets for that were outright cancelled, they instead postponed the Elton John show until 2022. Even back in 2020 they had the foresight to realize that maybe a year wasn't going to be enough to get all of this under control.
I know this is going to sound horrible, but one of the things my wife and I were most concerned about was the fact that Elton John wasn't going to make it to 2022. With Covid wrecking havoc on the older population, there definitely was that possibility.
Thankfully for us and the world, that wasn't the case. Although he isn't planning to tour anymore after this, the world would be a much darker place without Elton John in it.
When the tickets went on sale back in 2019, I noticed that there were two venues in Michigan available. The first was Little Caesar's Arena down in Detroit. This is a nice venue, but it is very large and like most sports stadiums, they pack you in as tight as they can.
Then I noticed that he was also coming to The Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, MI. My wife and I have seen our fair share of shows at this arena and what I love about it is the size. Where Little Caesar's Arena can probably hold about 25,000 - 30,000 people when you open up the floor for a concert, Van Andel is somewhere closer to 12,000 to 15,000. Much better in my opinion.
Honestly, as big a name as he is, I am actually shocked that Elton would play such a small venue.
Grand Rapids is a very cool college town, home of Grand Valley State University. It is probably one of my favorite cities in Michigan. It has that big city feel, but it is still much smaller than Detroit. I have been to many conferences in Grand Rapids and it has a lot of really cool late night establishments all within walking distance.
Since the concert was on a weeknight, my wife and I took the next day off and I booked us a room at the illustrious Amway Grand Hotel in Grand Rapids. It is part of the Hilton Curio collection and the rooms are quite nice. There are two sections of the hotel. The older part has opulently decorated rooms with old fashioned finishes and furnishings. The tower section has more modern rooms and that is usually the section I prefer.
Checking in through the Hilton Honors app earlier in the day, I was able to snag us a corner room with a river view.
This is the part of the post where I have to admit that I royally screwed up. We worked a full day and then drove over to Grand Rapids which took about two hours. That put is in town around 5:30 PM and since the concert didn't start until 8:00 PM I thought we would have plenty of time to get something to eat.
Looking back now, we should have taken a half day of work. I think in the future we will. As I said, Grand Rapids is a college town, so by the time we got settled in our room and headed out a little after 6 PM, pretty much every establishment was packed. With a wait time of 45 minutes to an hour just to get seated, that put us well after 7:00 PM. Since the concert started at 8:00 PM we were worried we might not get our food in time to eat it before we had to leave.
Especially given the experience we had in Nashville before the Opry that I wrote about yesterday.
We wandered around trying to find a place that didn't have a long wait and eventually ended up in front of the arena. We hoped they would have some kind of food inside and just figured that would have to do.
Lots of sequins and shiny bright outfits were to be seen. Also lots of tutu's and wacky glasses. We found a place inside that sold chicken fingers and waffle fries. They were probably some of the saddest chicken fingers I have ever had, but it was food, so we couldn't really complain.
We grabbed a couple of drinks and settled in for the concert to start.
It actually took a while for the place to fill in, but by the time the show started it was at maximum capacity. There was an usher that we had a really fun time watching while waiting for the show to start. He was a younger guy and would dance to the background music as he would lead people to their seats.
They seemed to get a kick out of it and he was clearly having a great time doing his job, so hats off to him. I wish we all had that much enthusiasm about doing our jobs.
Eventually the house lights came down and the crowd started cheering in anticipation as they usually do when that happens at concerts. I wasn't shocked when a piano and the band belted out that famous opening chord from the song Bennie and the Jets and the crowd absolutely lost it.
In case you are interested, I am going to include a picture of the set list from the night. It was a great show. There were some songs that I would have liked to hear like "Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters", but when you have a catalog as vast as Elton John's, you have to know that not everything is going to get played in a single show.
At 75 Elton John was still looking pretty good. He didn't quite have the range that he used to and some of the notes he had to drop down or cut off altogether where in his younger years he would have went a bit higher. You didn't really notice unless you were looking for it and honestly it is to be expected a bit when you see someone who has been doing this for so long.
His piano skills on the other hand were absolutely on point. He did have some trouble walking around the stage, so it was pretty infrequent that he attempted that. Actually, at one point towards the end of the show his piano was on a platform that could move around the stage like a remote control car. This gave everyone on either side of the stage a great vantage point.
As good as Elton was, I had a really fun time watching the percussionists during the show. One or two of them has been working with Elton since he started in the business. That is a long time to stick with one person, but I guess when you have that chemistry it just works.
I am sure @steevc would have appreciated the four percussion stations they had set up. Two of them with full kits, one of them with just bongos and some cymbals, and one of them with some timpani and cymbals.
It was a really awesome two and a half hour show. I am glad to be able to say that we saw him in concert. When artist continue touring at this age, you never quite know what you are going to get. I have seen some artist who still have it and some who absolutely don't. Elton John definitely still has it and it was an absolute joy to see him perform.
He told a lot of great stories and shared some great memories from his past. He also expressed his gratitude to the fans that said that he would miss playing for us, but it was time for him to spend some time with his family.
There few artists as iconic as Elton John and being able to see him live in concert is definitely a bucket list moment for me.
After the show, we headed back to our hotel and I took some shots of the skyline at night.
I know that last one is the same vantage point as the first one, but I was trying to get a better shot of the crescent moon.
It was a heck of a long wait from the time we got the tickets, but the show was well worth the wait! If you get the chance to see Elton John on his farewell tour, I highly recommend it. This may be your last chance unless he pulls a Bob Segar and just keeps having farewell tour after farewell tour. I don't really see that happening though.
Hopefully he still keeps making music even if he doesn't continue touring. I think he still has a lot of great songs left in that crazy glasses wearing head of his.
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