At the ages of eleven UK Singer-song­writer John Reil­ly and Cana­di­an pianist and co-writer Lewis Nitik­man were either side of the atlantic simul­ta­ne­ous­ly and rev­er­ent­ly open­ing up the gate­fold sleeves of Good­bye Yel­low Brick Road, mar­vel­ling at the colour­ful art­work, pic­tures and lyrics, then care­ful­ly plac­ing the pris­tine vinyl on their turntables.
When the sty­lus touched down on the spin­ning 33 rpm disc and the majes­tic, atmos­pher­ic organ intro to ‘Funer­al for a friend’ filled their rooms, there then fol­lowed song after beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed song and John Reil­ly, in Liv­er­pool was cap­ti­vat­ed by every evoca­tive word and imagery of Bernie Taupin’s lyrics as Lewis Nitik­man in Van­cou­ver sat at the piano work­ing out Elton’s inspi­ra­tional chords and melodies.
These were defin­ing moments in an era filled with so much inno­v­a­tive music and tal­ent glo­ri­ous­ly sail­ing out of tran­sis­tor radios and radi­ograms across the world and young Reil­ly and Nitik­man were like sponges drink­ing in the won­der. It was moments like these that even­tu­al­ly spilled them onto the path of their own cre­ativ­i­ty and there own orig­i­nal ideas as songwriters.
Both recog­nise the impor­tance of those excit­ing sem­i­nal moments in their lives and this is why every now and again they both rev­el in cel­e­brat­ing the songs of Elton John in a live per­for­mance. Not a trib­ute! Not an imper­son­ation! but a cel­e­bra­tion and inter­pre­ta­tion of his amaz­ing eclec­tic back catalogue.
These con­certs have been received with glow­ing feed­back and demand is high for tick­ets when­ev­er they decide to cel­e­brate these songs.
And so as we remain in this unprece­dent­ed time where peo­ple can­not gath­er togeth­er and com­mu­nal­ly share and enjoy the mag­ic of a live venue and artistes are unable to per­form which brings it’s own hard­ships , John and Lewis will be film­ing their live per­for­mance cel­e­brat­ing the time­less songs of Sir Elton John in the inti­mate set­ting of Yel­low Arch Stu­dios with no audi­ence. Tick­et hold­ers will be sent an exclu­sive link to watch the atmos­pher­ic con­cert at any time they wish, and over again.
Expect a brave set of Elton hits and some amaz­ing old­er hid­den gems with sto­ries behind the songs. They are like­ly to have a guest or two also.
Please buy your tick­ets now and why not buy a link as a present for a friend!
John Reil­ly and Lewis Nitik­man are grate­ful for your sup­port at this dif­fi­cult time and are com­mit­ted to bring­ing you the best per­for­mance pos­si­ble to your own homes wher­ev­er you are across the world.