DATE: Saturday, October 11, 1997            TAG: 9710100095

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E5   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY CRAIG SHAPIRO, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   57 lines

WE GET AN EARLY LOOK AT JOHN'S NEW TOUR

JUST IN CASE they haven't already, fans at tonight's Elton John concert can consider themselves lucky. And not just because they're getting into what will likely go down as the biggest show of the year.

It's because they're getting in on the ground floor.

John's performance at the GTE Virginia Beach Amphitheater is only the second stop on The Big Picture Tour, providing pretty close to a first look at his first tour in two years. He kicked it off Friday at the 15,000-seat Lawrence Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem, N.C. Tickets were gone there in 2 1/2 hours.

``We had so many people who wanted to order in advance, we could probably have sold it out without opening (sales) to the public,'' said Jeff Bowen, the venue's booking and marketing director. ``We could easily have done a second show.''

Ditto, no doubt, in Virginia Beach, where John sold out in a near-record 36 minutes. (At a shade over 20 minutes, Jimmy Buffett's August 1996 gig at the 20,000-seat amphitheater is No. 1.)

After tonight's show, John will take a breather then pick up Tuesday in Charleston, S.C. This leg of the tour ends Nov. 22 in Memphis. John has a handful of year-end dates in the U.K. before joining fellow piano man Billy Joel on a monthlong world tour.

Ticket sales, however, aren't the sole indication that Elton John is hot.

``Candle in the Wind 1997,'' his tribute to the late Princess Diana, has been a HUGE seller in Hampton Roads and around the world since its Sept. 23 release. Birdland Music in Virginia Beach moved more than 700 copies of the single, which benefits the Diana, Princess of Wales, Memorial Fund.

Birdland co-owner Barry Friedman said he had never seen anything like it.

``We were not prepared for the demand,'' he said. ``People were coming out of the woodwork to buy this thing. We put together a waiting list because we didn't get all of the shipments at one time. The phone didn't stop ringing.''

Phones rang nationwide too: First-week sales were a record 3.5 million.

The last copies were pressed Sept. 29, though some stores may still have some in stock.

The single sparked sales of John's new album, ``The Big Picture,'' Friedman said, but a bigger spinoff has been the rekindled interest in his earlier titles, particularly 1973's ``Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,'' which includes the original ``Candle in the Wind.''

``It gave a boost to a career that didn't need any more of a boost,'' Friedman said.

A specially designed Elton John candle is also being sold, with proceeds going to AIDS research. Locally, sales of the $54 keepsake, scented with John's favorite scents of hyacinth, freesia, jasmine and rose, benefit the AIDSCare program at Eastern Virginia Medical School.

Customers at Artifax, an art gallery on Colley Avenue in Norfolk, were to get their first whiff at a party Friday night.

``We've gotten a couple of phone calls as word starts to get out,'' assistant manager Meg Leeman said earlier this week. ``People blink a little bit (at the price), but once they realize that it's a good cause, they seem pretty excited.''

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