Back to basics | 15 September 2007

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. But not with Sir Elton John, who last week brought the Red Piano Show that has thrilled audiences at Caesar’s Palace for two years to London’s O2 Centre. While not yet etched in legend quite as deeply as Sinatra’s residency at the Sands, or Elvis’s performances at the Las Vegas Hilton, this was still pretty amazing stuff, not least because this particular knight was only performing on this particular night.

Sir Elton has made a bit of a thing in recent years of going ‘back to basics’, especially with his excellent 2001 album, Songs from the West Coast, which pared down to its essentials the style he has developed with his lyricist Bernie Taupin since their first recording, ‘Scarecrow’, in 1967. But there is nothing pared down about the Red Piano Show, his collaboration with the flamboyant fashion photographer David LaChapelle.

The man himself, once a drug-crazed demon in spectacles and platform boots, bouncing and stomping his way through a set, sauntered to his scarlet Yamaha keyboard and pretty much stayed there for the duration of the show. But that was fine by the 20,000 punters at Greenwich, who (if the songs themselves were not enough) had plenty to keep them occupied on the giant video screens behind, louche, dramatic and ingenious images competing for their attention like an open day at a high-tech bordello organised by a couple of billionaires.

To mention but a few: pictures of naked girls during ‘Philadelphia Freedom’ (‘I used to be a rolling stone/ You know if the cause was right/ I’d leave to find the answer on the road’), a haunting fight scene while he sang ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’, Justin Timberlake as a younger version of Elton in stripy suit, Pamela Anderson pole dancing, big floaty roses to accompany the ballad ‘Believe’.