Elton banner from Acer Arena to be auctioned off for charity

The Acer arena in Sidney, Australia, has kindly donated an Elton John banner to be auctioned off with all the profits going to the Don Spencer’s Australian Children’s Music Foundation in Australia.

Here's a direct link to the auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Elton-John-Concert-Banner-Only-One-in-Australia_W0QQitemZ150266562197QQihZ005QQcategoryZ59951QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Ready for Elton

Only 3 more days to go!! On Saturday morning I'm leaving for the UK, where I'll be seeing Elton twice: Darlington on Saturday and Perth on Sunday!!

More soon...

Elton played in Tenerife

Where do I start? We arrived in Tenerife the night before the concert and after greeting some friends we drove to our hotel in the South of the island. We spent the whole night finishing a sign for Elton...as he was doing Yellow Brick Road we thought of drawing a yellow road that started in Barcelona and went along all our trips through different countries following Elton (we spent like 3h cutting and pasting monuments and flags )

On the day of the show we wanted to do some sightseeing in the morning, but I knew I'd be nervous thinking that someone could be in the queue before us, so we went to check out the venue. There was noone waiting, hardly any security (we could have got in if we'd wanted to, but we were so stupid as to ask a security guy where the door was, and then he already knew us).

The organization had been great till that moment, but they messed up on the day of the show (more about that later, now to the show )We got there around 11am and the first fans arrived by 1pm. We met some fans we knew from other shows in Spain and spent the 9h in the queue chatting. When the doors opened we run for our lives, I was stopped but a security guy who was holding my bag while other people came in and he wouldn't let go, but I pulled hard, and run to where my friends were waiting, right there in front of Elton.

The concert started at 9pm sharp (some media couldn't believe this, and people complained that it had started at 9pm. ). After Bitch is back Elton said he was happy to be in Tenerife for the first time and then said they'd be doing 3 songs from Madman (I thought he'd drop Levon, but I realised he would be doing it!!). That must have been teh best version of Madman that I've ever heard, after some 8 minutes Elton kept playing and they went on jamming for about 2 more minutes, Elton and the guys in the band exchanging funny looks and duelling on their instruments.

That set the mood for the night, there was party going on onstage, and the audience of course noticed that and the party went on. The intro to Pilot was again amazing for a band show...more like the solo shows.When Elton played the first chords from Yellow Brick Road the people went wild...I wouldn't have thought they would respond like that, but they did. That was the moment when our sign made its appearance, and Elton acknowledged us a few times during the show (we were at the front and the sign stayed there for the rest of the show).

It was great to see that Elton gave The Bridge another chance, he dropped Circle of Life but I was happy to see The Bridge in again, and surprisingly it was well received by everyone, I'm sure Elton was happy and I was glad to see that people liked it as well Then to another one of the highlights, Honky Cat, by the end of the song they ended up jamming again, Davey ended up doing a banjo solo...I don't think I've ever heard that before!!!

The band introduction was as funny as always, Guy was champion of something I couldn't get, and Davey was a former member of the band "Hairy Mary". By the time they did Croc Rock they were having such a ball on stage that Elton couldn't stop laughing and even had to skip one verse of singing. He was doing funny voices during the whole song, there was a big party going on both on stage and in the audience, who sang the la-la-las really loud.

Elton didn't do autographs that night, he only signed something someone handed him on one side of the stage, but there was a great distance between us and him, and he would have needed the security to hand him the things, so that's why, and also that hardly anyone had brought anything, I don't think most people knew he does the signing sometimes. The show of course ended with Your Song, before starting he told us we'd been the best audience, thanked us and wished us love and health as usual.

All I can say is thank YOU Elton!!

Elton to play in Tenerife

It's been a while since my last update, and no, I didn't let that cancelled show affect me and I attended 3 more shows after that cancelled date: Xàtiva (Spain), Glasgow and Paris. It's too late now for a report of the summer shows, so I'm gonna concentrate on writing about upcoming shows.

So there it goes, the next stop is...Tenerife!!

When I found out about this show I did my best to resist it and wait for the summer tour, but then I thought better and I decided I had to go, I know I'm weak but Elton is Elton, and I can never get enough!

The show is now only 3 days away and I can feel the excitement growing, just that same feeling that I always get before a show, and it's always there no matter how many times I go and see Elton. Back in 1999, when I attended my first Elton concert, I thought that would be it, that I would be able to enjoy the memories of that evening for the rest of my life...but that evening changed my life, and here I am, 9 years after that first show, still following Elton down the Yellow Brick Road.

I'll be back next weekend with a report and (hopefully) some pictures from the show in Tenerife! Now this is getting exciting!!!!!!! :-)

C-A-N-C-E-L-L-E-D

Just 9 letters, 2 C's, 2 E's, 2 L's...apparently a harmless word, but...do never ever underestimate the power of a simple word! I would say that the word above, which I hardly dare to write anymore, is beginning to sound as if everyone had put a curse on me everytime I read it. The worst situation comes when this word appears in the little screen of your mobile phone...that little gadget that has sometimes brought you so much joy and put a smile on your face when it displays a message from a friend. However, if the text contains this one word...a tantrum of historical proportions or a depression that may last for a few days is likely to strike you.

Last Tuesday I worked hard until 8:30 pm, after which I was planning to pick up my bag, switch on my i-Pod at full volume and go home listening to Elton, slowly getting into the mood for the wonderful weekend that was soon to come.

When I suddenly heard my cell phone ring announcing a text message I wasn't prepared for what was coming...I read it, I read it again...was I dreaming? Sure, I would wake up any second, right? ...Wrong! A few more seconds went by and the text was still there....Vitoria has been cancelled, it read!

I considered throwing away this awful little cell phone of mine, but I realised the concert would still be cancelled...and I'd end up buying a new one that might end up receiving messages with another cursed word of mine....POSTPONED!

Zero Hour: 9 am

After months of speculation, buying flights and booking hotels before the BIG event was even confirmed, the long awaited day was finally here, and I didn't want the day to start because I knew once it was here it would be over too soon!

At 9 am sharp we met a few fans in the hotel lobby and went to have a breakfast that would give us enough energy to face the BIG day. On our way to the cafeteria we already met a few fans, and after breaksfast we met a few more from Germany, The Netherlands, Russia, and well, the USA, of course!

IT was time to leave for pier 81 in the Hudson River where a dreamboat would take us and some 200 more fans on a fundraising cruise, an event that was possible thanks to the joined efforts of 6 LATW organisers. After a few minutes of discussion it was agreed that we would meet at the boat...us Europeans decided pier 41 was at walking distance, so we took some time to visit the "good side" of Madison Square Garden to see the HUGE Elton banner we'd been told was hanging from there and which we hadn't noticed!!




After the photos (it took a while to get the perfect shot!) it was finally time to go to the Hudson and board the dreamboat!

We all signed a banner that had been made for Elton, there was a silent auction with incredible collectible items, and a big raffle.

After lunch, it was time for Elton's fans to have fun, and having a piano and a few pianists available in the house, the fun was guaranteed! We soon forgot about eating, despite the big choice of food, and we walked to the piano where we sang along to, first, Postcards from Richard Nixon and The Captain and the Kid and finally Rocket Man.

There was time for some sightseeing too as the boat approached Liberty Island and the Brooklyn Bridge, so the afternoon was complete, even the weather was good to us, and although it was a bit chilly in the Hudson River, the day was quite good and it didn't rain at all!

Almost 300 fans got together for the event, a lot of money was raised for the EJAF and we had fun and warmed up for the big evening that was still awaiting us in the World's Most Famous Arena!! Elton's 60th performance at Madison Square Garden on his 60th Birthday!!!

When are you gonna come down...

Almost one month after the trip to NYC, I'm still visiting my cloud every now and then. Am I going crazy? Every time I look at the pictures, or listen to the birthday concert in the train on my way to work, my mind flies to NY and I feel the need to tell everyone about the show...and we've got to admit it, people don't care about Elton John's birthday!

So to feed my need to talk about the weekend, here's a little bit more about our trip to NY...

Let's begin where the last post ended:

Saturday, March 24th, around 4pm: we got out of the subway train downtown and spent the whole afternoon...basically shopping! We've got to thank Rod's Lonely Planet guide for the indications that led us to the best shopping areas. I've got to admit that I was almost feeling sick by the time we got to SoHo, so I couldn't enjoy the shops as much as I'd have liked. But someone got a handful of clothes that day.

We had been looking for a cybercafe where we could check the internet for any fresh Elton news for the whole day. We were about to give up, actually we had almost decided that my state was too bad to go on with the shopping tour and were looking for the nearest subway station when, out of the blue, a cybercafe materialized right in front of us!

The computers in that place were almost slower than my Spanish dial-up connection (and that says something!), but after a few minutes Rod managed to log into his msn and we even managed to open the Hercules fan site and Stephan's blog that he was writing about his trip to NY and updating it everyday. That was how we found out that Elton's party on the eve of his birthday would be held....in a Cathedral!! It was 6 pm when we read that, we called a friend who had just landed in NY and told him the news, we met him at the hotel, got into the subway again and headed for the Cathedral of St. John Divine!

Unfortunately we were too late to see Elton, but we didn't find out until after half an hour of getting soaked in the rain. Elton and David were the first ones to arrive, being the hosts of the party, but we still got to see more celebrities than I'd seen in a lifetime! Elton's band, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, Yoko Ono, Liz Hurley, Jon Bon Jovi, Whoopy Goldberg, Robin Williams, Richard Gere! Raining and with all the press in front of us, it was almost impossible to get a good shot, but at the end we were so close that I still got a decent shot of Richard Gere ;-)




We spent some two hours in the rain, it was freezing...so after being interviewed by some TV crew, we had something to eat in a diner...interesting and very american way to end the day! ;-) So good was the diner, that my umbrella decided to stay in there instead of coming back home with me!

Back in the hotel, time to rest from such an active day and to assimilate what was to come on Sunday...the BIG day, Elton's birthday!!!!

to be continued...