You and your new oven

March 3, 2018 12:50 AM

Elton John apparently can create music on-the-fly for any set of lyrics. Here he is challenging the audience to provide him with material and getting Ibsen's Peer Gynt handed to him, instantly creating a pleasant tune. Too easy, you say, with Peer Gynt being all lyrical and stuff? Well then, here he is being challenged by a different audience, getting an oven instructions booklet up on stage.
posted by Harald74 (19 comments total)

Minor key! Bad oven!
Delightful!
posted by greermahoney at 12:59 AM on March 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

with bonus eye-smile by Richard E Grant
posted by Thella at 2:28 AM on March 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

Can't follow Youtube links, but I would encourage folks to find "Important Safety Instructions" by Vernon Reid from the album Mistaken Identity. An excellent example of this kind of thing.
posted by Meatbomb at 3:12 AM on March 3, 2018

In case you didn't realize that beneath all the glitter and glam there's a damn fine musician.
posted by tommasz at 5:00 AM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Also in this genre, there is a video of Ben Folds composing, on stage, a symphonic arrangement of a sentence about the historical value of the Kennedy Center. I guess he was playing with the orchestra at the Kennedy Center and the sentence came from an audience member's program.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 5:49 AM on March 3, 2018

Oh, here it is: https://youtu.be/BytUY_AwTUs
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 5:57 AM on March 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

Ozzy Osbourne appears to be sitting behind the guy with the oven manual. You can see him several times from 26 seconds to 37 seconds in the video.
posted by COD at 6:08 AM on March 3, 2018

The "guy with the oven manual" is Richard E. Grant.
posted by borsboom at 6:39 AM on March 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

Borsboom, I thought he looked familiar! Also the lady at the very beginning of the oven video, damn, that hair!
posted by jenjenc at 6:46 AM on March 3, 2018

An excellent example of this kind of thing

Another
posted by flabdablet at 6:49 AM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

It seems that there are several famous people in that audience, for example illusionist David Copperfield, model Claudia Schiffer, and tennis star Boris Becker and this (probably) then-wife, designer, actress and model Barbara Feltus.
posted by amf at 6:54 AM on March 3, 2018

Wouldn't be surprised to find that Atkinson Rowan was there as well.
posted by flabdablet at 7:05 AM on March 3, 2018

Can’t you just picture Richard E. Grant’s character from “Posh Nosh” telling his viewers about the time Sir Elton wrote a song about his oven?
posted by Guernsey Halleck at 7:33 AM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Delightful!
posted by merriment at 7:38 AM on March 3, 2018

Immediately makes me think of Voice of Harold
posted by stevis23 at 7:47 AM on March 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

Which is by far REM's best song.

Except for "Rockville"
posted by chavenet at 7:54 AM on March 3, 2018

It's from a series called "An Audience With ..." where celebs perform for an audience of celebs, this one from 1997. I always suspected the questions were never a complete surprise.
posted by epo at 11:17 AM on March 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

Marvin Hamlisch, well-known EGOT, would get the audience to shout out potential song titles and he would immediately perform what the song would be. My friend shouted "I married a chicken" and Marvin struck up a cheerful tune on the piano and sang "My mother wanted me to find a nice jewish girl, but oh no! I married a chicken!". It was not bad.
posted by w0mbat at 12:38 PM on March 3, 2018

Another and another.
posted by contraption at 9:07 PM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]