Rocket Man

Friday, April 7, 2023

We went to Treasure Island Resort and Casino (if you are from around here their jingle should now be running through your head) to see an Elton John cover show tonight. I figured if we liked Elton John enough to go see him, we would probably enjoy a cover show. And we did. The performer had a bunch of actual Elton John hand-me-downs from the 70s and early 80s. Those were VERY flamboyant and fun to see. He changed glasses for every song – leaving the discarded pair on the top of the piano. I didn’t keep track of how many songs/glasses there were, but the pile was considerable by the end of the show.

He told a story about how he wants to play for large audiences, but also wants to fly under the radar a bit – not doing anything to make the actual Elton John notice him. I had wondered if cover bands have to pay royalties or how that works, so…I still don’t know. Anyway, he got a call from Elton John’s management in 2019 that said he needed to call back immediately. He was very nervous! But they wanted him to recreate a bunch of Elton scenes from concerts from the 70s and 80s for footage to be shown on Elton’s Farewell tour. It turns out that when we went to the concert last year, we saw this guy dressed up in his Elton hand-me-downs in a lot of the videos they used. That is fun. Makes me want to have known that 13 months ago.

We didn’t linger to gamble, or even to watch gambling (I was in favor of lingering), so we got stuck in after-concert traffic for a while – then got behind a guy who wanted to go no faster than 10 miles under the speed limit. Why? At one point, going up a hill, we were more than 20 miles below the speed limit. I could have been watching gambling and still gotten home at the same time.