About Face
For proof that cynicism hasn’t reached epidemic proportions, look no farther than Kemper Arena, where the Billy Joel and Elton John Face to Face tour landed April 12. With an average ticket price of $100, the show still sold out, and the largely middle-aged crowd was never less than thrilled with the predictable set lists. In Joel’s case, his selections were nearly identical to those of his 1999 stop in Kansas City, down to the ingratiating gimmick of playing the song “Kansas City” just after his opening number. But then, this third Face to Face tour is itself a remarkably effective gimmick from a commercial point of view, an ideal marriage of two radio staples who seem unfazed that their identities have been subsumed by the public. We know John is shrewdly cheeky and Joel is charmingly vinegary, and they operate with these images in mind.
The pair gently converged on John’s first American hit, “Your Song,” at 7:45 p.m. Next came Joel’s “Just the Way You Are,” the first missed opportunity of the evening; even when its author is onstage, at no time should this song be performed with more respect than, say, David Letterman would afford George W. Bush. An absurdly bombastic “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me,” though sung more convincingly by Joel than his partner has mustered in recent years, left each man with nowhere to go but down.
Joel then disappeared for a little more than an hour. Just before John, who wore an ugly fuschia coat with dark green filigrees over sober black pants, kicked off his proper set with “Funeral for a Friend,” he and the black-clad Joel embraced, the image suggesting “Funeral for a Keebler Elf.”
John’s contract must stipulate that his band members have hair worse than his Hey-Hey-I’m-the-Fifth-Monkee weave. Guitarist Davey Johnstone, whose 28 years of service in John’s bands give him the right to toss guitar picks at the front rows as though he were the star, has the same Rapunzel tresses he has sported since 1972, and the overall predominance of mullets and middle-age-crazy feathered hair revealed that John is touring with the Secret Brotherhood of Shadoe Stevens. Thickly gloved drummer Nigel Olsson, another veteran of John’s mid-’70s band, seemed to have two metal hands, but, as with Joel’s longtime drummer, Liberty DeVitto, proved himself a hard-hitting, underrated asset. Though the arrangements rarely strayed from the recordings and no song was from later than 1983, John’s band members can’t be faulted for perfectly playing what was asked of them.
John’s crazy right eyebrow, which still willfully arches as he performs (as though part of a Poe story), told the tale of a man whose enthusiasm stands in stark juxtaposition to the routine song choices and sleepwalking stage patter. John might be predictable, but you can’t stop that eyebrow from signaling that he’s having fun.
There’s an oft-reprinted photo of John attacking the Troubadour Theater’s piano in 1970. His hair — all natural — is a tangled thatch, he wears a thick beard and almost-normal glasses, and in the picture he’s in the air, no bench in sight, at a 45-degree angle but not blurred, as though he’s been hovering at the keyboard all night like Liberace’s hummingbird. There were moments when the sadness of nostalgia should have been overwhelming — a version of “Rocket Man” belabored like Gus Grissom’s Mercury capsule sinking in the ocean instead of calmly orbiting forever around 1972. At such moments it was easy to stare, bored, at the stage and idly wonder what time John must shave to still look fresh onstage at 8 p.m., ignoring the songs because nothing new emerged from them. But the surging fury of “All the Girls Love Alice” — a song, by the way, that featured bisexual housewives and a murdered teenage lesbian before Eminem was even born — almost washed away the decrepit entrails of “Crocodile Rock.”
John’s choice of “Uptown Girl” as the Joel song he performed alone captured the appropriate winking camp, but the performance itself was an unfortunate reminder of John’s limited upper vocal reach, as was “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” which, even without his falsetto, was tuned to a lower key. Still, John can do more now with his lower register than ever before, and by the end of his program, he looked younger — refreshed, less pale, slimmer even as he waddled offstage as though still encased in that Central Park Donald Duck costume.
Joel’s rounded middle hinted that “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant” should now be called “Owner of an Italian Restaurant.” His hair thin and shorn to prison length, his face goateed in gray and his eye blackened by a stage misadventure, Joel looked like Tony Soprano’s cousin. True to his scrappy nature, Joel focused on songs that showcased the fleetest piano-playing on raveups that allowed him to throw his stocky frame around the stage or onto the piano. The tour gives him a foil to replace the shadow boxing he’s always insisted on, and he couldn’t resist the urge to elbow John by playing harder and faster.
Joel was more animated, and an exit poll would probably declare him the winner. Both made strong appeals with voices that have matured and deepened while gaining feeling. But where Joel was sometimes gratingly bellicose, John frequently flashed the familiar gap-toothed smile immortalized on the cover illustration for 1975’s Captain Fantastic. And if John limited his comments, Joel’s more spontaneous-sounding stage patter suffered from having, in fact, been trotted out at every stop on their tour, and in some cases on his own last run.
After the three-hour mark, the duo finally launched a home stretch of songs together. Though the novelty and energy made for a good time, even the ripe melding of “You May Be Right” to “The Bitch Is Back” wasn’t worth dipping into your 401(k) to see. A major disappointment, in fact, is that two of pop’s most flamboyantly outre Beatles fans — to say nothing of Joel’s obsession with the Four Seasons and John’s with the Beach Boys — did little to capitalize on their gifts for harmony. John especially caked his ’70s albums with multilayered vocals, often harmonizing with himself. But when dueting, the pair either traded verses like two rail workers driving one spike, or belted in tandem in a contest to see whose neck veins most rivaled Nick Nolte’s.
The tour isn’t historic, but the show wasn’t dueling Napoleons either. Instead, despite the obvious, rote text of the show, just below the surface were welcome reminders of these men’s roots: Joel’s strengths and weaknesses remain those of a frustrated lounge act with a gift for melody. And John is still, in his heart, singing that Jim Reeves tune he auditioned with 35 years ago, crooning — and sometimes acting out — at an English pub not so far from Joel’s Long Island bar. But at the end of a four-hour night, what the Face to Face tour had to say was that the patrons of that pub and that bar have been too spoiled and have in return, unfortunately, contained their heroes’ wills to surprise.
