Elton John Live at Festival Hall Article: 1972

Elton's London Festival Hall Triumph

The one-page article in New Musical Express (February 5, 1972) reviewed Elton John’s performance at London Festival Hall on Saturday, reflecting on the difficulty of viewing his work in true perspective. It noted that while Elton is a fine singer, fluent pianist and indefatigable showman, the smokescreen of unnecessary publicity and over-done image-building had almost put the reviewer off regarding him as any sort of musical force. The piece highlighted his fifth album, the live performance 17-11-70, as not bad—full of vim and vigour, a punters’ delight—but criticised the overdone schmaltz at the end, with the audience chanting “Elton John, far out” to the applause.

Article Overview

Publication Details

Magazine: New Musical Express (UK).

Date: February 5, 1972.

Format: One-page concert review/article.

LONDON FESTIVAL HALL/ SATURDAY

FOR ONE REASON or an-other it is difficult to view Elton John's work in a true perspective. Difficult be-cause although I know him to be a fine singer, a fluent pianist and an indefatig-able showman, the smokescreen of unneces-sary publicity and over-done image-building that surrounded his career until recently has almost put me off regarding him as any sort of musical force whatever.

To illustrate the sort of thing I mean, consider his fifth album, the "live" per-formance "17-11-70". Not a bad album really; full of vim and vigour, and oba punters' delight.

The catch, the overdone schmaltz that I referred to, comes at the end of the al-bum when, to the hearty applause of the invited "audience", lence", some wades in with "." John ever'body troll Elton Elton John, Far out "Yuk" was my reaction when I heard this offering, and many of you obviously agreed because "17-11-70" didn't do as well as was obviously expected.

It's unfair, I know, to single out this pretentious rubbish as a cross on which to nail poor Elton, but it serves as an excel-lent example of the kind of approach that no artist -let alone a genuinely talented and original musi-cian like E. John - would wish on even his worst enemy.

All of which is a bloody shame, because the man can really put something down, given half a chance to capture a sympathetic audience. Certainly, he puts everything he has into his performances, as anybody who has seen one of his concerts will know (to descend once more into the negative, this "hardworking" image was also overdone, with ques-tionable album ads show-ing a hot-panted Reg per-forming handstands on his Grand, while bewildered fans looked on, aghast). And yet his music is OK, even good and some-times very good.

"Tumbleweed Connecс-tion", the third album he made, was a very finely-finished piece of wax, with excellent musicians like Caleb Quaye in back, and an almost-too-beautiful production from Gus Dudgeon. "Tumbleweed" also had some very fine songs, well lyricized by Bernie Taupin, and taste-fully arranged, played and sung by the album's com-plement of talent.

"Tumbleweed Connec-tion" was criticised -rightly in my view being a sort of post-Butch Cassidy Wild Westerama cash-in the nicely-faded album photos, the lean, drawn gunfighter look, and the overall phoney air of "This-here train's-gonna-run - -time iffen- Ah - have shoot-mah-way-through".

All a bit heavy, you will agree, for Reginald Dwight of Pinner, Middlesex, aged 24, English musician.

Thankfully, because we all getting a bit choked with the pseudery, there was a change of heart at Dick James Music after "17-11-70". Some minion (bless him, whoev-er he was) must have pointed out that DJM's own little goldmine was on the point of subsiding, un-loved, into Boot Hill. Anyway, "Friends", a film-score album, was put out with more tasteful publicity, and with the ob-vious intention of allowing John to be judged on his own merits as a musician. And then, quite recently, came Elton's finest offer-ing to date, and one that has received acclaim from critics, musicians, US FM stations and humble punt-ers alike - "Madman Ac-ross The Water".

Elton, himself, feels happiest about the material from "Madman Across The Water" and from his second, "Elton John". Prophetically, these will be the sources from which he will draw for Saturday's concert at the London Royal Festival Hall.

The backing group to accompany him on the first half of the concert will have Nigel Olsson on drums, Dee Murray on bass and Davey Johnstone (ex-Magna Carta and mak-ing his first performance with Elton) on guitar.

STOP

For the second half, this group will be augmented by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, who will them-selves be supported by a specially-integrated chestral rhythm section, plus a mixed choir. or-

Expect the performance to be rather more res-trained than usual; Elton must feel his image problems even more strongly than we do.

So the emphasis will be on Music, and on Musical Ability, of which Elton has a very great store. Hope-fully, he'll show it and I for one look forward to hear-ing more of the new, im-proved Reg. He never needed to improve, really: all Elton's ever been short of was good advice. There's always been too much talent there to be buried under six feet of bad taste.

TONY TYLER