By Times Chronicle Staff
The Elton John tribute, “Yellow Brick Road Experience,” is returning to Oliver’s Venables Theatre this May – bigger, better and different than last year’s show according to the show’s promoter Mike Schell.
This year’s installment of course features frontman Andrew Johns and the nine-piece band, The Jets, and carries on the visual and auditory experience that sets this tribute act quite apart from the others.
Schell notes that last year’s show was a sell-out with rave reviews and lots of questions of when the show will return.
“We decided to add Oliver as one of our stops on our Okanagan tour,” he says explaining that the band is bigger this year – a nine-piece which includes Schell playing trumpet.
Yellow Brick Road Experience frontman Andrew Johns.
The performance this year will again feature Juno Award winning singer Julie Masi, of circa-1980s Parachute Club fame. The Parachute Club was recently inducted into Canada’s “Walk of Fame”.
Schell has also got bass player Dennis Marcenko who played with KD Lang’s band as well as Colin James amongst others.
One more completely new aspect to the performance will be the addition of the 50-member Naramata Community Choir which will be joining the other musicians on stage for the Oliver, Penticton and Kelowna shows.
And for those who may have seen last year’s show, Schell says everything is new – different songs (well, some songs will remain the same . . . just because), different comedy, different costumes, a bigger band that includes a three-piece horn section and of course, the choir.
And for frontman, Johns, the utter attention to detail in reproducing Elton John’s incredible music and singing not to mention his costumes are all facets of what sets The Yellow Brick Road Experience apart from other Elton John tributes and keep every member of the audience engaged from start to finish.
Johns himself has never found himself needing to rekindle the magic in what they do.
“I’ve probably played some of his songs almost as much as he has, and I’m still not tired of them,” said Johns. “[his former band Boulevard] had about four hits on MuchMusic and there’s certainly some of those where I’m like, yeah, I’m kinda done with that. But his songs, I don’t get tired of them, and I’ve played Your Song probably a thousand times.”
The Yellow Brick Road Experience comes to Venables Theatre in Oliver on Friday, May 17 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $54 (tax included) and can be purchased online at venablestheatre.ca.
