After a decent night’s sleep, I was ready for tonight’s gig.  Billy Trudel and I took a walk downtown.. which was just as crowded with shoppers as yesterday. I took a couple of photos of a huge blow-up Santa climbing the town hall!  We all checked out at around 4pm, and made our way to the Nynex Arena, which is just the other side of the downtown area. It’s huge – for a UK venue, anyway!  And very modern. Little did we know what was in store for us this evening.

Elton arrived for soundcheck, and seemed quite cheerful, despite a bad review in the Observer newspaper (which was more of a personal attack than a review, really). As the afternoon wore on, he became more and more upset, particularly when he saw an even worse review in the Guardian (all the regional papers have given objective, mostly good, reviews of the shows). After reading the two articles in question, I could see why he was upset. They were nothing to do with the shows at all: just a vindictive attack on him.

By 6pm he was so worked up about it that he decided to leave, and was spotted getting in to his car and leaving the building. After about 15 minutes he arrived back, realising he was going to punish the PUBLIC for something over which they have no control whatsoever. By 10 minutes before showtime, he was saying that he could not be held responsible for his actions or words, and that maybe he should not play after all. But we did go on stage. From my point of view it was a difficult show. I found it really hard to get into any kind of groove. I think he was just trying to get the evening over with as quickly as possible. He left out 5 songs, sending us all into a frenzy, trying to follow the new song order. We were off stage by 10.15pm!  All this was with 4 guests from Premier Percussion in the audience, too! The crowd probably got SOME idea that things were not quite right, but they did enjoy themselves nevertheless. For me, I was thankful that it was all over. I think we all felt something of the trauma that Elton must be suffering: if only second-hand. Both JJ and DC (Parmet) came in the car with me tonight. The journey to Birmingham took about an hour and a half, and we were at the hotel by Midnight!  My neck has been playing up recently.  Needless to say, I was unable to sleep until after 2am…