By Clint McElroy
HQ 106 | SUMMER 2019
Sir Elton John doesn’t jump around anymore.If you want to know the truth, he’s not going to win any Olympic gold medals for walking all that well, either. On stage, he kind of shambles. For crying out loud, he has a motorized piano that drives around the stage so he doesn’t have to walk it. But, he doesn’t have to. Because Sir Elton can still play and Sir Elton can still sing. And Sir Elton most definitely can still put on an amazing show. At least that’s what he did at U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati.
My wife Carol officially retired this summer after 20-plus years of making the surgical department at Cabell Huntington Hospital a better place. One of the things she and I wanted to do in our mutual retirement was to go to more concerts. Both of us love music and appreciate a lot of the same bands, although not all the same bands.
That’s why you may have seen me tagging along with her at a Counting Crows concert and her dutifully attending a Steely Dan show with me.
There is really no experience like a live concert. The Tri-State is a good location because there are several major concert venues within a three-hour drive – Cincinnati, Columbus, Louisville, Lexington. And no, I haven’t forgotten Huntington’s own Big Sandy Superstore Arena (don’t give me that look, Hall and Oates!).
But I have to tell you, things have changed a bit. If the last concert you saw was Black Oak Arkansas or Maggie Bell, heed a few of these guidelines for concert survival:
- The Audience Stands Up … Through The Whole Thing. From that first sizzling guitar lick to the last “We love you, ______” (fill in the city’s name where the concert is located, occasionally the wrong city name), the people sitting in front of you will not actually sit. Or the people in front of them, or the people in front of them. There really is nothing you can do about it. If you want to see the performers, you are going to have to stand tall. It does no good to yell, “Down in front!” That just makes you look like a grouchy old curmudgeon. If you’re like me and can’t stand for two hours, just stay in your seat and listen. Trust me, you’ll be able to hear just fine! People may still think you’re a curmudgeon, but maybe they’ll just think you are a curmudgeon with bad knees.
- The Band Is Going To Throw Things At You. Performers don’t smash guitars quite as often as they used to, but man oh man do they love to hurl stuff into the audience. Drumsticks, towels, water bottles, you name it. Carol and I crossed the river to see The Guess Who at Summer Motion in Ashland and the guys in the band tossed so many handfuls of guitar picks into the crowd it was like a hail of shrapnel.
- You Will Not Pee. Nope. Not once. Go before. Or be prepared to listen to half the concert from the restroom lines.
- You Will Be Amazed At Your Own Memory. If you are like me, you have trouble remembering where you put your keys, and wallet, and phone, and car. And yet at a concert you will find yourself remembering song lyrics you haven’t heard in 20 years. This phenomenon was on display recently, at the Doobie Brothers’ incredible show at the Clay Center, where you might have heard me belting out, “The sheriff and his buddies with their samurai swords!”
By the way, if you want to see Sir Elton’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour before he is done (and he will be done, because it is his “farewell” tour), you still have some opportunities. The American leg of the tour runs through November. Carol and I are going again. Look for us. We’ll be the couple holding hands and belting out, “Hold me closer, tiny dancer! Count the headlights on the highway!” But, we might be doing it sitting down so we might be difficult to spot. It’s my knees, you know.
