Dan Downing (a.k.a. smiling)

At the other end of Chris’ musical / celebrity adoration spectrum is where I live.

My butt found itself comfortably ensconced in the third row Orchestra at Caesar’s Palace for Elton John’s Red Piano extravaganza last October, spitting distance to where Elton planted his.  The Colosseum was full of screaming, delirious fans, many of whom paid $250 for the privilege.  I paid zero, this being part of the computer conference package I attended.

Baffling to me was the apparent adoration of this overweight, aging rock star and of his music.  Baffling again was the evidently turned on audience in last evening’s NBC’s telecast of this same concert. With the exception of a couple of his hit songs (Daniel, Rocket Man), his music, to me, is not in the same class as that of my musical heroes of the 60s (Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, Buffy Saint Marie, Joan Baez). I loved their music, but did not fawn at their stages nor identify myself as a fan.

In fact, the whole notion of celebrity adoration is very, very, very baffling to me.  Yes, I can admire both form and content of a Jewel at the Boston Opera (attended by a subset of the usual canoe-group suspects in 1999?), but people that can put their feelings and life insights into thought-provoking poetry, sing them lucidly, and accompany them with understated guitar chords so you can clearly hear the words and get the message, are relatively few.

And very baffling to me also is that anyone would pay dearly for an event like this in a theatre as large as the Colosseum for a view that from most seats requires binoculars, and requires sullying yourself with that weirdest destination in the Universe, Vegas.

But that’s me; clearly left behind in a gentler subset of my 60s generation.