Elton John & Billy Joel

Rarely can it be said that you have seen two of the forerunners of a genre on the same stage in the same night. A packed house of 19,960 people got a chance to see that last night at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul when Elton John and Billy Joel brought their Face 2 Face tour to the Twin Cities for the third time. I was lucky enough to join some family and friends in attending this extremely unique concert.

First off, may I suggest to never attend a concert without earplugs if you have ear infections, I must say I have learned this the hard way, and it was not fun! But alas, I could have cared less beforehand, for I was on my way to see two of the most famous piano players in the world of singer songwriters. first thing I noticed upon arrival at the Xcel Center was the lack of younger people. I mean come on, even for just Elton I would have been at this concert when I was 12. I believe I counted around 10 people younger than myself, which I find extremely unsettling when compared with todays musical popularity contest.

So after purchasing a wonderful Davanni's personal pan pizza (which they forgot to cut, I must have looked like a fool holding a whole pizza like that...) I found my seat, near the rear of the floor of the auditorium, just in the inclined seats. I could tell from this spot that the light show would be stellar, and that this setup would really deliver the volume necessary to get one grooving. So the show starts, with two grand pianos rising to the stage, and then out come our friends Elton and Billy. They start off with the the slow and somber "Your Song," a surprising starter for such a large audience. The other surprise, the volume is monumentally un-epic. Granted the light show more than makes up for that in the song "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me," but it seemed quite from where we were sitting. too quite.

So after 4 songs together, Billy exits stage left, and the lights dim as the intro to "Funeral for a Friend" starts coming out the minimalist speaker setup. What happened next was more than unsettling. When Elton and the band roar into "Love Lies Bleeding," the second part to this epic masterpiece, the band sounds like they could care less about how it sounds. Elton turned on band auto-pilot. And I must also say, as a bass player myself, the bassist was good, but his tone did not match the music at all. Let's just say that a Jaco Pastorius bass tone does not belong in the Elton John band. Granted, the band got their chops together around the time that "Levon" came on, was that I really started to enjoy it. After very faithful renditions of "Daniel" (of course named after myself) and "Rocket Man" I felt a little tap on my shoulder. I look behind my shoulder to see my aunt, signaling us to come up the steps with her and follow her to the higher ranks, the Suite Level.

This was probably the most epic turning point ever in a concert. We follow her upstairs, to her companies suite. Just so happens that it is directly next to the stage. Probably the most perfect view of any concert you could ever find. We were able to catch the end of Elton's set from this ever-beautiful view, and thoroughly enjoyed watching Elton rip it up through his closer, "Crocodile Rock."

And then, without pause, Billy Joel enters the stage. And here comes surprise #2 of the evening. Billy Joel absolutely KILLED IT. Having a perfect mix of music, a killer band, humor, and plain old courtesy towards the audience. He brought his band through killer versions of "Movin' Out," "It's Still Rock and Roll," and my favorite of the night "River of Dreams," which had a killer break where Prince's "1999" was played for a minute or so, though Joel seemed less than pleased, calling it a "Rock 'n Roll Fuck Up." Joel then finished off his set, roaring through some more classics, until Elton triumphantly returned to the stage with him.

Seeing these two men on stage together is nothing short of unique, in that their chemistry musically and comedically is perfect. They continued to rock on through Elton's "The Bitch is Back," with both backing bands, and with the ultimate vigor that every live bands searches for. After a killer Beatles medley containing "Birthday" and "Back in the U.S.S.R." and a mind-blowing "Bennie and the Jets" the backing musicians left (or rather sank through this state of the art stage,) and Elton and Billy finished the show together, singing each others songs, "Candle in the Wind" and "Piano Man," a perfect end to the night.

I am in awe that these two men, with full backing bands, could make this whole show flow so smoothly as it did. Though ticket prices were more than steep, this is truly one of those occasions where any price is easily justifiable, and will easily become a memory that nobody in attendance will forgot anywhere in the future.