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Elton Jeff marks third return to Memorial Opera House

It was in June 2022 that Jeff Gajewski unveiled himself as his new stage identity at Memorial Opera House in Valparaiso.

“I’d already been a familiar stage fixture on the Northwest Indiana band scene since 1994 when I first started performing with the band The Current,” said Gajewski, a resident who still lives in his high school hometown of Whiting.

“But like so many regional bands, after the first years of the pandemic when we were finally allowed to emerge and get back to performing, so many of us artists and performers knew it was time to reinvent ourselves for the audience.”

With some advice of his longtime bass player Jeff White, Gajewski decided to adopt a glittering guise and performance persona in homage to Elton John.

“I seemed suited to Elton John songs and the music, and so Elton Jeff and the seven-piece band the Honky Cats emerged as our new entertaining identity with Memorial Opera House in Valpo really being the first big concert debut where we tested it out.”

Elton Jeff and the Honky Cats proved so popular at the 350-seat venue, the headliners were invited back and celebrated a second year sold-out show in March 2023.

At 8 p.m. Feb. 10, Elton Jeff and the Honky Cats return to Memorial Opera House for a third time, and Gajewski is promising the audience new and extra extravagant costume changes.

“What started out as just a couple costume options in 2022, has now become a sensational stage wardrobe of more than a dozen custom created suits that I have to pick from when performing,” Gajewski said.

“When I do a two-hour concert with an intermission like what I have planned for audiences at Memorial Opera House, I usually have a couple costume changes.”

Gajewski travels with his own “shell” grand piano which cleverly, yet still elaborately, disguises his portable keyboard. He admits it took time and dedication to learn all of the stage movements, mannerisms and musical moves of icon Elton John, who turns 77 on March 25 and wrapped his final farewell tour in July 2023 netting just shy of $1 billion of box office sales.

“Just learning the songs and style of Elton John was a challenge, and it took time, which even my audiences now realize,” Gajewski said.

“I’m now doing Elton John songs in my concerts that I wasn’t able to add in during my first and second year, because I just didn’t have them down in a way that I felt ready for performing them on stage.”

He said audiences were shouting out requests and “often for some of Elton’s deeper cuts,” which he said he “wasn’t ready to perform.”

“A good example of a song that I recently added in the past year is ‘Little Jeannie,’ and I’m proud that I now have it as part of my concert song set.”

Gajewski describes his Elton stage tribute odyssey as a lesson that required him to “get into the mind of Bernie,” the latter nod being a reference to Bernard “Bernie” Taupin, Elton John’s songwriting partner.

Taupin, now 73, is the man who dreamed out top-selling hits and lyrics for a catalog that includes “Rocket Man,” “Crocodile Rock,” “Honky Cat,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Candle in the Wind,” “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” “Bennie and the Jets,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” “The Bitch is Back,” “Daniel,” and “This Is Your Song.”

Now in year three of his Elton Jeff incarnation, Gajewski still admits he’s not entirely completely comfortable behind the famed glittering shades of the piano stage showman.

“I’m gonna to admit something, even if it is a bit of a reveal,” Gajewski confessed.

“I’m still not entirely used to wearing these giant glasses on stage while performing, and part of the reason why is because I still need to disguise my own small, discreet reading glasses underneath the other huge lenses at all times to be able to read my sheet music.”

Elton Jeff and the Honky Cats

When: Feb. 10

Where: Memorial Opera House, 104 Indiana Ave., Valparaiso

Cost: $40-$80

Information: 219-548-9137; memorialoperahouse.com

Philip Potempa is a freelance reporter for The Post-Tribune.