An outraged EJ scribbles “You don’t know shit, Newt” on my treasured copy of Yellow Brick Road
You’d think that pop legend Elton John would be beyond caring what the critics think by now, right?
Well, apparently he still reads the reviews. Even before they get in the paper.
I wrote a pretty damn glowing online review of the Big E’s show at Rogers Arena last Saturday (September 13), tacking on a complaint about his choice of encores. I didn’t care for the way he went all Disney on our asses by ending the night with those sappy tunes fromThe Lion King, “Circle of Life”/”Can You Feel the Love Tonight”.
Then the next night, during his second Vancouver show, this message got tweeted by one of my more trustworthy followers, @60Blues:
OMG!!! @earofnewt Elton John just talked about your review!!! He read it!! Didn’t like the Lion King diss!! Lol
Later on I got the gist of what apparently went down.
“It was right before ‘Circle of Life’; Elton was thanking Van for 2 great nights. He says he read a review of last night in a paper then corrects himself and says on a website. He says it was a beautiful, great review except the guy says he didn’t like the 2 songs at the end. He then went on to say he had stopped singing them but now he has 2 kids who watch that movie so he started singing them again. And he then said he really didn’t fucking care if anyone didn’t like them because he’s never ever been fucking cool anyhow!”
Now, I take total exception to that statement. Elton John is fucking cool.
Except for those two Lion King tunes.