Joel-John tour postponed

New York  Billy Joel and Elton John have postponed the rest of their U.S. concert dates together to allow Joel to recover from an illness.

The two were scheduled to play at Madison Square Garden on Monday night; at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y., on Wednesday, Friday, March 28 and March 30; and at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N.J., on April 4, 8, and 11.

Joel’s spokeswoman, Claire Merucuri, said Monday that the “Face to Face” tour shows will be rescheduled in the next day or so.

“He’s being treated for an inflamed vocal cord and an upper respiratory infection,” Merucuri said. “We expect him to make a 100 percent complete recovery.”

On Monday, a New York Times review of Friday night’s concert at Madison Square Garden suggested that Joel “seemed to have ingested something quite a bit stronger than cough syrup,” and described him as rambling and bellowing.

Merucuri declined comment on the review, saying only, “He was sick.”

Four children for starters

London Liza Minnelli and producer David Gest are wasting no time in starting a family.

After marrying on Saturday, they’re already planning to adopt four children, a British newspaper reported Monday.

Minnelli, 56, and Gest, 48, married in a celebrity-filled ceremony at New York’s Marble Collegiate Church. The wedding was Minnelli’s fourth and Gest’s first.

Britain’s Daily Express newspaper quoted the couple as saying they were going to adopt four children “of all races.”

Singer psychoanalyzes conduct

London  George Michael thinks he may have been trying to shake up his life when he got arrested four years ago.

Michael was charged with lewd conduct in a Los Angeles public bathroom in April 1998. Soon afterward, he said publicly for the first time that he was gay.

The 38-year-old singer told British Broadcasting Corp. radio on Monday that he may have tried to get caught to “make my life about me.”

He said he had been grieving after the deaths of his mother and of his former partner, Anselmo Feleppa.

“I think, with hindsight, I did it to myself and I tried to work out why,” Michael told BBC Radio 1.

Michael in the 1980s, released his latest single, “Freeek!” Monday in Britain.