Monday, July 13, 2009

The Piano Men...

"It's nine o clock on a saturday
The regular crowd shuffles in
There's an old man sitting next to me
Makin love to his tonic and gin"

....these are the starting lyrics from Billy Joel's chartbuster " The Piano Man" and one of the many melodies to which D and I sang along as we spent Saturday evening watching two of the greatest "piano men" of all times, live in concert...Billy Joel and Elton John, face to face...

After watching 'Bruno' on Friday night, anything else we did on Saturday would have been more than a refreshing change. Speaking of 'Bruno', I never have and never will be a fan of the Baron Cohen kind of humor (at least it seems unlikely in this lifetime!!)...I read somewhere that the movie has invariably got just one of two kind of reviews...while some viewers have deemed it 'extremely hilarious'...others have deemed it 'immensely disgusting'...and without doubt, I definitely belong to the latter category of movie goers !!

It was all good that we had already booked tickets for the live concert on Saturday where the rock and roll legends were performing some of their greatest hits...love for all forms of music is something that D and I passionately share and both of us were really looking forward to it. We had watched 'The Eagles' last year when they were performing in DC as part of their "Long Road Out of Eden" tour and since then, we have nurtured this secret hope and dream of being able to watch at least one musical legend ,live in concert, every summer...this time around ,it turned out to be a double treat with the two "piano men" in a face to face concert :-)

Instead of driving into south east DC, we decided to take the metro to the Washington Nationals Stadium, the venue of the concert.As we got off the orange line at L'Enfant PLaza , it was almost as if we were swept by a tide of people to the platform from where the Green Line was supposed to take us to the venue of the musical event...people of all ages were lined up to get into the metro to see the piano men in action...among them, was this grey templed , cheerful man standing beside me...he scanned the crowds, smiled at me and said, "I am surprised to see so many youngsters like you around...for some reason, was just expecting middle aged people like me to be interested in this kind of music...never realized the rock and roll music of the 70s and 80s still sells among youngsters"...I couldn't think of anything more apt to say in response to this other than "That's what makes Billy Joel and Elton John legends, I guess" ...just then the train arrived and there was this huge round of applause and cheer from the crowd... the celebrations had already begun with the crowd all geared to sing along and dance to the beats of the musical greats...

And boy, the legends didn't let us down as they treated us with a taste of their evergreen hits...Billy Joel's 'River of Dreams','Moving Out','Stranger','Uptown Girl','Only the good die young','My Life','Zanzibar','She's always a woman' and Elton John's 'Rocket Man', 'Daniel','Candle in the Wind','Don't let the sun go down on me' being a few of the plethora of melodies that were performed....At the end, the two great artists traded vocals for each others compositions...and they finally concluded the show performing the surreal vocal-piano-harmonica combo...'The Piano Man'...

As I watched the fingers of the musical genius',oh so deftly, move over the pianos and create magical music , I realized that it was about time I got down to some serious business, as far as my guitar/piano learning aspirations are concerned, instead of just dreaming and building castles in the air about being able to someday strum my favorite tunes on the guitar and create melodious music on the piano...oh well, yes, they are big dreams, big dreams...no harm done though in dreaming big, I guess...after all that's what keeps the zest in life alive,doesn't it!!However my "learn it yourself" strategy having miserably flopped last summer, I better go and seek the help of dependable friends, 'google' and 'craigslist', to assist me in my search for a good music teacher if I want at least some part of the dream to turn into a semblance of reality...

Till then, I will have to just make do by thanking and admiring everyone who makes great music...

10 comments:

Cath :: AllPiano said...

Sounds like a great concert! A friend of mine went...can't wait to talk to her about it!

Garima said...

Sounsd fun! Never late for learning something new... which instrument are you thinking of?

Priyanka Rajkhowa said...

@Catherine:
Thanks so much for checking in...yep the concert was awesome...am sure your friend will fill you in with more details...just checked out your website...you have some really interesting online piano classes...

@Garima:
It's proving to be a tough choice between the piano and the guitar...the typical Libran that I am ,am just vacillating between the two as of now...just hope I can make up my mind and get into atcion before the summer whizzes past...

Suku said...

glad you enjoyed it..i remember being in a trance like state after the show for several days....
it was almost dreamlike..had a hard time accepting that musical greats and two of my favorites performers were just a few feet away from us....

Priyanka Rajkhowa said...

@Rhimjhim ba: :-) Yep...a surreal experience...literally had to pinch myself to make sure I was not dreaming...:-)

Rush said...

Oh Priyanka, that sounds like an awesome evening. I love both Billy Joel and Elton John. aaahhhh!!!! I can only imagine how it wouldve been to listen to both of them.. and all that Piano *dreamy eyed*

And yes I completely agree with you about Baron-disgusting-Cohen. I took Borat in and I don't have the appetite for Bruno. :)

Priyanka Rajkhowa said...

@Rush: Apparently the legends have this face to face world tour every alternate year...am sure you will be able to catch them when they are performing live together next time around...would have definitely asked you before getting the tickets had I known you were such a great fan of the musical greats:-)

m. said...

cool post, priyanka. and i am mighty proud u belong to the libran clan too :p

and i guess, doing BOTH piano & guitar, aint bad u knw... though, one at a time ofcourse!

Suku said...

write write, would love to hear your take on the party!

Priyanka Rajkhowa said...

@m : Thanks girl for dropping by...