Elton John -
One Night Only
(The Greatest Hits)
Performance
Production
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Elton John -
One Night Only
Performance
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The music of Elton John was virtually the soundtrack to my pre-high school years. His output during the 1970's compares with The Beatles output of the 60's in terms of popularity and radio airplay. His music enjoys, possibly, the widest appeal of any other artist in history, and has influenced the broadest range of musicians, from Axl Rose, to Billy Joel. It runs the gamut between hard rock, pop, soul, and rhythm and blues. I don't think I have ever met anyone who doesn't at least like Elton John's music. The most amazing thing about this DVD is not the fact that it includes 27 of his hit songs, but that so many hit songs had to be left off. After over two and one half hours of non-stop smash hits, their just wasn't any more time left for classics like "Levon", "Honky Cat", "Island Girl", "Border Song", and "Pinball Wizard". Most artists would be considered successful if they had ONLY these five hits songs in their repertoire. That is the true testament to how prolific Elton John's career has been. Elton John is now pushing sixty years of age and his voice is considerably less powerful and does not have the range of when he was in his prime. This is hardly noticeable to most casual fans, as even a diminished Elton John is far better than most singers you hear in the top-forty today. This became clearly evident during Elton's guest appearance on the American Idol show this year, where the ten, or so, finalists were tasked with performing some of Elton's biggest hits. Even the best of this group were clearly out of there league, and obviously struggled to handle the range of most of his songs. Although it is titled One Night Only, this DVD is actually a culmination of two consecutive nights worth of concerts he performed at Madison Square Garden. The performances are seamlessly edited together to appear as one long concert. Wisely, the performance focuses on Elton's remarkable 70's output and is rounded out with a scattering of numbers from the 80's and 90's. The 1973 epic, double-album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road receives the most attention here, as the concert opens with the entire side one, of the original album - "Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding", "Candle In The Wind", "Bennie And The Jets", and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". This was a brilliant way to open the show, as "Funeral/Love" is one of the most intense and energetic songs in Elton's entire catalog. Elton hammers away on the piano and sings the song with inspired energy and enthusiasm. His excellent band, including several longtime members such as Davey Johnstone (guitar) and Nigel Olsson (drums) tore through this opening number like it was 1975 again, and worked the audience into a frenzy right of the start. This got me in the proper mood right away, as I was worried that this concert might only be a bunch of uninspired rehashings of his 1990's movie soundtrack hits, and the like. If you love your Elton John Greatest Hits Volume's I and II albums, then you will surely love this DVD, because their is hardly a song missing here. This concert included several guest singers who sang with Elton on six different songs. I never particularly enjoy having guest singers come out and interrupt the show, as they usually lessen the performance, and rarely make it more exciting. The only worthy contributions this night were by Billy Joel and Kiki Dee. Kiki Dee teamed up with Elton on the 70's mega-hit single "Don't Go Breaking My Heart". They have probably never performed this song live together, and I doubt Elton has ever played it much in concert, so it was a nice little treat for the fans who remember listening to this song on the radio every twenty minutes back in 1975. Surprisingly this song was saved for last. Billy Joel, who has done several co-headlining tours with Elton during the last decade, and has become a sort of musical brother to him, performs an excellent version of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" with Elton. They sit, pianos facing each other, as they trade verses of this classic song. Joel sang the song brilliantly, injecting his own signature style, but stayed true to the original style of the song. They have an obvious admiration of each others songs and talent, and it comes across here, making this song one of the show's highlights. This is definitely a different Elton John than the flamboyant, showman Elton of the past. No crazy Donald Duck costumes, and no jumping on top of the piano here. His voice sounds better than it did in the eighties when he was having severe vocal problems, but it has definitely lost some range. He digs down deep to give several stunning vocal performances especially on "Tiny Dancer", "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me", and "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word". Elton is no slouch on the piano either, and he cuts loose with a few rowdy solos on "I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That" and "Crocodile Rock". Elton genuinely seems to be reveling in playing all of these classic hits, and it rubs of on his band and the audience. The production quality of this DVD is outstanding, especially the audio. Presented in both DTS and Dolby 5.1 surround, the audio mix is bold, clear, and has excellent instrument separation - and there are a lot of instruments used here too. The concert experience is reproduced brilliantly. The video quality is not quite up to par with the audio, but it was good overall. Their was some graininess at times and it could have been sharper. The video may have been compromised slightly from having to squeeze DTS and Dolby tracks, along with 150 minutes of concert video, onto one single sided disk. Hearing these great songs again makes me wish that there was still some lost, mid-70's, pre-glitz and glamour Elton concert footage waiting to be discovered, and restored. Until then, this DVD provides a pretty satisfying career retrospective, and should be highly enjoyed by all fans of Elton John. Reviewed by Paul M. Roy - June 2004 |
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Running Time: 153 Minutes |
DVD Release Date - December 2001 |