Elton John: Live in Barcelona (1992)
Film:
DVD:

Music by Elton John
Lyrics by Bernie Taupin
Directed by Andy Morahan

Features:

• Live concert footage featuring nineteen songs
  
• Behind-the-scenes tour documentary
  

Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: Borrow it.

This DVD contains an Elton John live performance in Barcelona, filmed in July of 1992. This was for John's The One album and quite literally was a world tour. The set list contains a number of bits from that album, as well as some old standards ("Tiny Dancer" and "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting") along with some of the 80s Elton ("I'm Still Standing" and "Sad Songs Say So Much").

The way I see it, there are two types of people who like to listen to Elton John. There's the people who like the old Elton (specifically the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road era Elton) and then there are people who like Elton from any era of his career. Personally, I'm of the former category though I linger into the 80s. After that point, I just can't seem to get into his stuff. But, looking at the track list involved with this disc, I thought I would be entertained regardless.

Unfortunately, for the most part, I was wrong. There's one reason to go to a concert, in my opinion: to see a live music act from an artist you like and get caught up in the energy of the performance. That's why they call it a live show. Otherwise, why not just stay home and listen to the albums? And for those people who can't show up, there's always recordings of the live shows. The only reason you provide a video of said live performance rather than simply putting out a CD of the thing is because there's some visual goodies that people would miss out on--again, more of that energy stuff you're trying to tap into.

This Elton John concert, although it has capable renderings of an array of John's songs, doesn't really break any new or even interesting ground from a music standpoint. I'm not expecting a reggae version of "Daniel" or anything, but if the songs don't sound that different from the studio versions, again, why am I here? They try to kick up the energy with stuff like "Mona Lisas" and do, a bit, succeed. But then there's stuff that drags it down again like an ill-advised cover of Queen's "The Show Must Go On" that John just doesn't have the lungs to bring off or "Sad Songs Say So Much," which is marked by John getting outgunned vocally by his trio of backup singers (whose synchronized hand jiving and swaying in place provides the only even remotely interesting thing to look at while the show is going on). Again, the people at the show seemed to be having a good time--but I just couldn't get there.

As far as extras go, there's a 52-minute documentary with behind the scenes bits from this tour and footage from other Elton John tours. Enragingly enough, it seems like every bit of footage from a show they showed in the docu looked a lot more interesting than the stuff in the concerts. John, you know, used to actually get up and do stuff and...well...rock. There's a whole bunch of footage that seems to be just people noodling around on instruments and whatnot, and if you edited the thing down to just necessary behind the scenes and interviews, you could probably shave about twenty minutes off of it. Everyone you talk to pretty much blows smoke for John, and John is the only one who has anything reasonable to say about what he's trying to accomplish.

Now--this is a disc crafted for the Elton John enthusiast. If you are one, then you'll probably love the thing. However, people who only somewhat like John won't be swayed by it. I'd be more interested in an album of these songs than a DVD, since there just isn't much going on on stage to engage the eyes.