Elton John offers sincere look back on ‘Million Dollar’ career

Elton John tells us he’s been writing songs with Bernie Taupin for 48 years.

And touring for 46 years.

With Davey Johnstone as guitarist for 43 of them.

With all this duly noted from the stage of the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, yes, it seems as though this rock royalty has been looking back of late. “The Million Dollar Piano” certainly feels that way.

The 67-year-old pop legend is now the grand old man of the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, though he still offers a gracious shout-out to the currently sidelined Celine Dion — the only act to have done more shows in the Colosseum since 2003 — and “my friend Rod Stewart … bless his heart.”

But the Colosseum is booking more stars to do fewer dates each. After this weekend, John is only on sale with 16 more shows scattered through March and April.

Local fans wish he would just drop into Caesars and continue with whatever he is playing on the road. But “Million” is a specific, carefully considered show. Changes in the past two years are in the visuals — which, frankly, was in need of improvement — not the locked-down set list. For instance, the giant rear-screen video portraits for “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” tie back to the David LaChapelle pop art which dominated John’s first Caesars showcase, “The Red Piano.”

Despite some fun at the beginning and end, “Million” is more sober-minded and almost elegiac at times. You get a nearly palpable feeling that baby boomers will soon start aging out of their concert-industry domination and these songs won’t be as important to those who come after. When John thanks the audience and says “I take you with me when I go home,” it feels like the beginning of the long goodbye to their years of investing in top-dollar nostalgia.

Though he didn’t bring us up to date with anything from “The Diving Board,” the new album hailed as a return to his early form, there was plenty of that early form.

All but four songs are pulled from that prolific period between 1970 and 1975, including three from 1971’s “Madman Across the Water.” And one of those is the old-West epic “Indian Sunset.” Its melodramatic lyrics haven’t aged well, but its cinematic dynamics still make for a dramatic piano and percussion tour de force with longtime sideman Ray Cooper.

The “Lion King” finale, “The Circle of Life,” reminds us of John’s wider pop-culture impact. But the same 100-minute set also made one of its 18 songs the classical pomp of an obscure album cut, “Better Off Dead,” perhaps a private message to fans who listened all the way through “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy” on LP.

If the songs don’t change, fans can look for nuance in the introductions. On the first night of this stint, there was less joking and more sincere reflection. When he and Taupin delivered “Your Song,” “We both realized we’d come so far in such a short time,” he observed.

He dedicated “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” to late gospel singer Andrae Crouch, and assured fans he is “happy in my own skin,” and still enjoys performing so much that it takes him “two or three hours to get to sleep” after a show.

And his voice sounded better than it has at other times, though it’s clearly the piano playing that’s the undiminished skill. “Rocket Man” and “Levon” receive some creative stretching, and “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues” gets a cool call-and-response workout with the trio of backup-singing women.

Near the end, “Crocodile Rock” cops a page from the Celine playbook, filling the enormous video screen with shots of the audience in a communal celebration of all our years together. “Je suis Elton” perhaps?

Always. Or for however long we keep showing up, and however long he keeps at it.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.