Billy Joel, April 20, 2008

This is another post that has nothing to do with the Civil War, so for those who only read this blog for historical content, you may want to skip this post.

We saw our second of four old geezer band concerts last night. Billy Joel came to town.

The show last night was fabulous. The old guy is still a consummate entertainer. He joked about his lack of hair and the fact that’s he’s now 58 years old. Given that he has not released a new album of pop music since 1993, his continuing appeal is a testimony to his ongoing popularity. His first album was released in 1971, so he’s been around for nearly 40 years now. Nationwide Arena was sold out–20,000 people on their feet singing and dancing the whole 21 song show.

He opened with “Angry Young Man” from Turnstiles, which has long been one of my favorite songs of his. The second song was 1974’s “The Entertainer” from Streetlife Serenade. He also did “Summer, Highland Falls”, from Turnstiles. There was at least one song from every one of his albums, except for the first one, Cold Spring Harbor.

What particularly impressed me was that instead of using someone else to hit the high notes in “An Innocent Man” like he did the last time we saw him, he hit them himself. And he nailed them. Not bad for an old guy. Not bad at all. He then did “Keeping the Faith”, the final song from 1983’s terrific An Innocent Man album.

He was backed by a very tight and very professional band, featuring the terribly talented Crystal Taliefero on percussion, saxophone, and backing vocals. They did two fun things during the course of the show. He did the gospelly “In the Middle of the Night” from his last pop album, River of Dreams, about mid-set. Midway through the song, the band stopped dead in their tracks for a second, and then the lead guitar player broke into “Hang on Sloopy”, which is one of the Ohio State University sports anthems. The faithful of Buckeye Nation went bonkers. After a chorus of “Sloopy”, the band then shifted right back into “In the Middle of the Night”. Talk about pandering to the crowd.

And then, Billy brought out his guitar tech, nicknamed Chainsaw. Billy announced that Chainsaw was going to do lead vocals on the next song, which was a religious song appropriate for a Sunday night. That religious song was AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”, with Billy on lead guitar. Too funny.

Of the 21 songs played (counting “Highway to Hell”), five of them came from 1977’s The Stranger: the sappy “Just the Way You Are”, which is still his biggest selling single, “Anthony’s Song (Moving Out)”, “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” (always a favorite of mine), “She’s Always a Woman to Me”, and, of course, the crowd favorite, “Only the Good Die Young”. “Scenes” and “Only the Good Die Young” were encores. He performed over half the album. He didn’t do more than two songs from any other album, so I guess that says a lot about The Stranger. The night’s final song was his legendary signature song, “Piano Man”, from the classic 1973 album of the same name. With Billy on piano and harmonica, he let the crowd sing the final chorus–it’s always an amazing thing to hear 20,000 people singing in unison, and he was obviously loving it.

One of the evening’s more interesting numbers was “Zanzibar”, from 52nd Street. It’s an experimental jazz fusion piece, and he did some very cool trading of riffs with one of his horn players, who switched from flugelhorn to trumpet mid-song and played them both extremely well. Nifty stuff that shows off Billy’s still keen piano skills.

There was only one song that he didn’t do that I wanted to hear. Although he did “Allentown” from 1982’s The Nylon Curtain, I hoped he would also do “Goodnight, Saigon,” his wonderful tribute to Vietnam War vets. When we saw him last time, he not only did that song, he brought out a group of actual Vietnam vets to sing the chorus, “And we all went down together,” with him. I’ve long believed that he got “Goodnight Saigon” right, that it is the last musical word on its subject, and that, as a consequence, it’s one of my favorite and most moving songs of all time. Sadly, he didn’t do it this time. I wonder if that isn’t a result of the current war in Iraq.

As he left the stage for the last time, he made a comment that sums him up nicely. “Don’t take no shit from nobody,” he called out. What more needed to be said?

It was a great evening with a consummate showman and a great entertainer. Next up, Elvis Costello and the Impostors warming up for The Police on May 4.