elton john

Tori Amos will soon hit the road to support her rich, trip-hop-laced new album “from the choirgirl hotel,” and inevitably the audience will contain more than a few awed kids taking in their first-ever show. Twenty-four years ago it was Amos-then 11-who was the wide-eyed first timer when a friend took her to see Elton John at the Capitol Center in Landover, Maryland.

“We were pretty little in those years, so we snuck down in front. I tried to get as close as I possibly could to watch his hands at the keyboard. I really loved it. It felt like I could just pull up a sleeping bag and sleep right there under his piano. I was a huge Zeppelin fan at the time, and it took me awhile to get into Elton, because “Your Song” wasn’t really my thing. I was into Jimmy Page. Elton was one of the few piano players I really, really spent a lot of time listening to. When you think about it, songs written like that on the piano were really unique; it didn’t sound like anybody else. It wasn’t copied or rehashed. But my favorite thing about the concert was his shoes. He was wearing some ridiculous platform extravagance, something only a queen could wear. I have a love for shoes. I collect them. Race cars, paintings - those aren’t my thing. I just hang shoes on the wall. They’re architecture, you know?” [Entertainment Weekly - 1998]

What was the first gig you went to?

“Elton John in about 1973. At that time Elton was quite controversial in the States -- his drugs, his clothes, being gay. I got there really early with my girlfriend. She was 15 and I was 11. We were very mature for our age though; we had a little lump of hash in our back pockets. We snuck ourselves down to the front, we just pushed our way through, and when he threw his water, if fell on me, and I felt like I'd been baptised by the piano king. Obviously, it hasn't hurt me.” [Q magazine - March 1996]