Last night a lot of folks I know went to Elton John’s farewell concert at Comerica Park. Surprisingly, we did not. But I have the most fabulous story about him… a few years back, like when I still had red & black hair, it was Jake’s birthday (April 24, 2005). We decided to spend it at the Palace of Auburn Hills listening to Elton. I’m huge into merch. We were studying the offerings and considering a possible shirt when a dude taps us on the shoulder. “You guys look like Elton Fans”… Us, “Well sorta”, him, “Not quite the answer I was looking for, so let’s try this question. You guys celebrating anything special?” Us, “Yeah, it’s his birthday today!” Guy, “Perfect! I’m Elton’s keyboard tech. He sends me out with front row tickets for fans cause he doesn’t want to see them scalped. So how’d you like to sit in the front row?!?” Us, “Obviously YES!”So, we moved from our nice-ish seats to sit right under Elton’s teleprompter. Good news I could sing along to most every word of every song. (Thanks to the Anderson’s down the road for having all his records when I babysat their kids.)Elton kept looking at us and we kept partying and singing along. It was like we were in the band. Jake kept saying encouraging words to him (like a dork). His choir was amazing and featured some local Detroiter’s. Every song was special, not one was a dud.At the end, he shook our hands smiled, said thank you for being so fun. I said thank you for Rocketman, I mean what the hell else do you say in 10 seconds? (I love sparkles because of you, I think every girl deserves a song like Candle in the Wind? Or I wanted a brother like Daniel too? How about Bernie, think you could share the secret to your chemistry?)… nope, just said “rocketman, burning out his fuse up here alone”. Just felt right. Thank you Elton for such an amazing experience. I hope everyone loved your show last night as much as I love this one memory.Now, go put on Rocketman and sing real loud, I know you wanna…
