Sir Elton John wowed in VR and IRL to announce his farewell tour starting in September. / Matt Baron via Shutterstock
“From the office of Elton John…” read the unexpected message in my Inbox.
I’d come down from the euphoria of conducting an interview in a penthouse overlooking the labyrinth of Lower Manhattan’s financial district when I’d opened my latest email, inviting me to an event the music legend was hosting the following week at Gotham Hall in Midtown. The only other mystery words etched in my mind’s forefront:
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My invitation from Elton John. / Office of Sir Elton John
After a week that felt like a true New York minute, I got to the venue, John’s discography in my ear as I entered, still not sure what to expect. Gotham Hall has one of the most majestic interior arrays in Manhattan, its stone walls and pillars arching towards a stained glass roof. It wasn’t my first time inside the venue, but when I entered the hall in midtown that Tuesday, with only a week’s knowledge of the event, I was left wondering, pulling myself back to that “Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road” lyric, wondering: “What on earth could Sir Elton John be announcing?”
The answer would come, but the room of guests would take quite the ride before that all happened. The crowd packed the hall, where a stage draped in black with a white star logo above his name was surrounded by cameras of all varieties. Staff handed out fizzing champagne flutes, then dealt VR headsets and Yamaha headphones—the only music brand Elton uses, said host Anderson Cooper. I placed the headset on, adjusted for my terrible vision and waited as a purple sky full of stars twinkled at me.
Within five seconds, we were all swept up in the Troubadour in Los Angeles for John’s first US concert, swirling around as he belted out ‘Your Song’ and the reviews from Rolling Stone wafted around us. And I was in tears singing along in my head, because I was too nervous to sing aloud. Pretty sure so many of us at Gotham felt that way.
His Troubadour set evaporated into darkness and I felt myself rising swiftly (a very understated creative choice by Spinifex, the Project agency tasked with creating the virtual reality experience) through rafters and onto the next stop of this wild ride: Sir Elton John at Dodgers Stadium, staring straight at me in a bedazzled Dodgers uniform, before getting the virtual (and some of the physical) crowd to chant “Saturday! Saturday!” in deafening unison and jumping on his piano, baseball bat in hand.
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Elton John, wowing the crowds at Dodger Stadium, recreated to wow us in Gotham Hall / Rocket Entertainment
He’d leap off the stage and poof—gone again as we continued our elevator ride through his career. As we rose, a golden machine with piano keys transformed into a rocket, jettisoning John into outer space, as we take a few seconds to appreciate the days he would serenade crowds on private jets.
We’d freefall through the rest of the legend’s career retrospective, floating through space and time as some of his lifetime accomplishments float past us. And eventually – the yellow brick road that he bids farewell to. The VR experience ended, our goggles plucked off our faces, and spinning around was the stage, Yamaha playing in front of us, and Sir Elton John singing yet more familiar words: “Blue jean baby, L.A. lady…”
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Source: The Drum