Fan review by Stephan Heimbecher.

Following day 2 of the Elton Expo 2013 quite a number of fans attended the "Million Dollar Piano" show at the Colosseum in Caesars Palace that same night. It was my 116th Elton show, but the first time I saw this new production in Las Vegas after having attended "The Red Piano" back in 2005.

I never was a big fan of "The Red Piano", to be perfectly honest, and I am not so sure that I will ever become an avid fan of this new Sin City extravaganca either. On the plus side I have to mention that "Million Dollar Piano" includes some fan gems such as "Better Off Dead" and "Indian Sunset" and the show lasts for two hours, which makes it considerably longer than the 90 minutes "Red Piano".

"Million Dollar Piano" kicked off at 7.41pm with the sound of "Also sprach Zarathustra" (Thus spoke Zarathustra) and the band together with their equipment being moved in from left and right. Elton entered with a golden cape, which was taken off by the 2 Cellos, and launched right into "The Bitch Is Back" followed by "Bennie And The Jets". He then welcomed the audience level by level starting with the 2nd balcony. House lights were brought on only for the specific part of the audience that he greeted - a simple, yet effective way of addressing the audience on some kind of a personal level.

"Rocket Man" then was the first song the video wall at the back of the stage came into play, which is extended on the podiums of the band as well as on Elton's piano. Just like with "The Red Piano" I didn't really get the visual concept during this part of the show. The screen was black during some songs and I kept wondering why there was a camera man on stage during the entire show, but up until the end one could never see any live footage anywhere.

Following "Levon" and "Tiny Dancer", which always work great with any audience, the band moved out and Elton became a lot more talkative and gave a long introduction into "Your Song" referring to Bernie and their 46 years of songwriting. He then introduced "Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters", for which he was accompanied by Davey and the 2 Cellos, referring back to the 9/11 benefit show at Madison Square Garden in New York, which would forever be stuck in his mind as a very emotional evening. During the song, ordinary people from New York City (filmed in 2012) where shown on the screen, making good use of that gigantic canvas for the first time in my opinion.

What followed was the highlight of the show for me, two great performances with Ray Cooper: "Better Off Dead" and "Indian Sunset". Then the band was brought in again and Elton gave another long introduction into the next song, "Empty Garden", which began with material from the famous show on November 24, 1974, when Elton was joined on stage by John Lennon. Unfortunatly, only about ten seconds of that footage exist, so the clip ended rarther abrupt.

"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" featured a nice cartoonish 'The life of Elton John' animation on the big screen, which was one of the few interesting video clips. Following "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues", Elton sang the entire band introduction, which that way seemed to last as long as "Indian Sunset", but was unique in a way and well received by the audience.

Elton dedicated "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" to Billy Jean King, who was in the audience celebrating her birthday with 250 of her closest friends. Another Billy Jean King song, "Philadelphia Freedom", was next. For this some stage elements left and right opened up and revealed the video screen in the back in its entire enormous dimension. This actually was the look that I had expected throughout the entire show. During "I'm Still Standing" snippets from various Elton video clips were shown, leaving all the hardcore fans in the audience playing trivia with themselves. And during "Crocodile Rock" the big screen finally came to life with singing along audience being shown in five times life-size.

Parts of that audience were then allow to rush the stage during "Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)", just after Elton's piano had been carefully roped off. And while lucky stage crasher were shuffled back to their seats, the band already launched into the final song of the night, "Circle Of Life".

The entire band as well as Elton came to the front of the stage after that, taking a bow, and then Elton gave a high five to everybody on stage as well as a few people in the first row, before leaving without even saying "goodbye".

I will give "Million Dollar Piano" another chance tomorrow night. It's with no doubt a great show, but with ticket prices as high as $500, I do prefer a regular Elton show.

Following is the complete set list of the "Million Dollar Piano" show on October 5, 2013:

1. The Bitch Is Back
   
2. Bennie And The Jets
   
3. Rocket Man
   
4. Levon
   
5. Tiny Dancer
   
6. Your Song
   
7. Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters
   
8. Better Off Dead
   
9. Indian Sunset
   
10. Empty Garden
    
11. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
    
12. I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues
    
13. Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me
    
14. Philadelphia Freedom
    
15. I'm Still Standing
    
16. Crocodile Rock
    
17. Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)
    
18. Circle of life

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