Hold me closer, Tony Danza.

Thanks for your well-wishes about my current incarceration. I'm glad that we can all agree that the girl who thought Chris Daughtry was a bigger deal than an Elton John / Billy Joel combo just plain ol' needed killin'.

But the show?

I will now admit something very painful.

Elton John did not bring home the bacon, nor did he fry it up in a pan. Dude phoned it in.

One of my coworkers who also attended the show interpreted it as Elton getting old and unable to really be the showman we all wanted. I felt that was very generous ... and then felt like a hateful little bitch for thinking of Elton as a lazybones instead of a possible invalid.

His set was like watching the radio. So, I watched the crowd, which was infinitely more interesting. Couples were slow dancing. Two teenaged boys became progressively less embarrassed of their dancing dad and got more and more into the music. But mostly? Mostly, it was lovely and amazing to see people step outside of themselves.

You could see the people they were when they first heard Elton's music. Those three middle-aged guys in the polo shirts? They weren't middle managers on Saturday night. They were kids listening to vinyl in the basement. And that white-haired couple giving the secret looks? They obviously made out to Tiny Dancer in the back of his Monte Carlo, back in the day.

For me? That was the real show. Not watching kids make out in a Monte Carlo - don't be gross. Seeing music transform people into the selves they were when the music initially made them so happy, those times that the music still takes them back to now.

And for the love of all that is holy, why do I not have my own Time-Life Infomerical? You know I would rock that gig. Rock. It.

And then Billy Joel came on, and his show wasn't like watching the radio, so I mostly watched him instead of the crowd. I love him ... so maybe I was one of the people transformed.

Billy Joel was my first real rock concert. Forever cementing their place in the Cool Parents Hall of Fame, our parents took me and Poochie when I was a sophomore and he was in fourth grade. That show opened up so many possibilities for me. And then? Then, my dad drove us home in a blizzard. A trip that should have taken an hour and a half took more than three hours. Poochie now refers to weather where you know you have no business driving as just "Billy Joel." As in, "I'm so glad to be home. It's totally Billy Joel out there."

What were we talking about again?

Saturday night. Right. Daughtry girl? Needed killin'. Elton John? Very ill or very lazy. Billy Joel? Rockin' the house and representin' bad driving conditions since 1991.