I’ll take a break and be back next weekend to start my series of posts about Dr. Stanislav Grof; his view of the psychodynamic, perinatal, and transpersonal dimensions of human consciousness; and both psychedelics and Grof’s Holotropic Breathwork.
Here, my characters Dylan (36) and Yale (25) attend one of Elton John’s two concerts in Dodger Stadium in 1975. (It’s so short I should have included it in yesterday’s post about Elton John and Bernie Taupin.)
Los Angeles
October 26, 1975
Ten a.m. Last night Elton filled this stadium with 55,000 people. He’s going to do it again tonight.
“He could have done it for 20 nights,” Yale says.
Mayor Tom Bradley has declared it Elton John Week in Los Angeles and Elton’s just gotten his star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. We were thinking we’d get closest to the stage by showing up at 10 a.m. but people began coming in at 6:30, so we’re back a ways from the stage. There are millionaire executives and hippies showing up and everyone from senior citizens to high school kids.
The growing crowd is in a festive mood for hours. Some people send beachballs sailing through the air. Some people stand in a circle around a taut blanket and bounce daring persons into the air.
There is a deafening roar as the curtains part and we all see Elton sitting at his gleaming silver grand piano. He’s dressed in rhinestone-covered overalls, a mirrored shirt, and a bejeweled bowler hat. On a hydraulic platform, Elton rolls toward us as he begins playing a soulful rendition of “Your Song”. The screams are hysterical.
Moments later Elton pumps up his left fist in triumph and the whole stadium roars again. We all sing all the lyrics to this song, as we will sing the lyrics to almost every song he’s about to sing.
Yale and I spend these next hours in psychic resonance with Elton. He’s hypnotic. Mesmerizing. He holds tens of thousands of us in the palm of his hand. We sit quietly and listen with rapt attention when he wants us to. We rise to our feet and let go emotionally, cheering wildly, when he frees us to.
In that perfect singing voice, Elton reaches out to everyone in the audience. As the songs ebb and flow, waves of energy roll out to us from the stage in a steady flow. We move from happiness to anger to tears and round again as we find release in this emotional catharsis.
Elton is known to do a lot of zany things at his concerts – too zany for me. But he’s dialed it back a bit as a showman over the last year or so, and tonight he finds just the right balance.
Halfway through, after a 20-minute intermission, Elton reemerges wearing a specially designed sequined and glittery silver and blue Dodgers uniform, complete with a blue baseball cap. Emblazoned on the back is “ELTON, 1’’.
He grabs a silver baseball bat, raises it to the sky, and commands his audience “louder”! From atop his piano, he whacks tennis balls deep into the crowd. His fans couldn’t adore him more.
“All right,” he says, lowering the brim of his baseball cap and giving us a sly smile. Holding court before us, he leaps effortlessly onto his piano. The crowd basks again in the glow of his music and cheers and swirls and sways and dances in celebration.
“Elton is on!” yells Yale. Across the full three hours, Elton performs 31 songs, including “Rocket Man”, “Someone Saved My Life Tonight”, and “Philadelphia Freedom”.
As the sun sets, there are thousands of flickering lighters. We are totally involved in the moment. In delirious abandon, we participate in the intensely energized atmosphere.
Once it's over, everyone is emotionally drained. Elton has justified again his sky-high place in the pantheon of music. He’s given 55,000 of us everything we wanted. We are more than enthused. It’s one of the best experiences of our lives and the night’s magic is etched into our memories forever.