Billy Joel: Five Pivotal Performances From The Piano Man
Monday, 29 July 2024
Written by Huw Baines
It’s a busy season for Billy Joel. The Piano Man recently closed a major chapter in his life with his 150th and final show as part of his marathon residency at New York’s Madison Square Garden — it began a decade ago — and he will soon head across the pond for a massive standalone date at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, his only European engagement of the year and his first show in the Welsh capital. There are still rooms left for him to conquer, it seems, so he’s doing it. In anticipation of one door closing and another opening, here we take a look back at some of the pivotal live performances in Joel’s 50 plus years in showbiz. Sing us a song etc etc etc.
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant - Live at Carnegie Hall, 1977
This one is about a musician on a precipice. Following the release of ‘Turnstiles’ — another mid-seller in a run of early mid-sellers for Joel — he was on the road towards ‘The Stranger’, the record that would finally break him into the open thanks to an all-timer of a tracklist and a production job by Phil Ramone that finally captured the barroom sizzle of his live band. At Carnegie Hall in June 1977, only a few months out from the record’s release, Joel dropped a couple of future staples into his setlist. During Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, we get the full picture of Joel as a vamping performer capable of pyrotechnic energy and also free-flowing musical flights of fancy, taking the audience on a ride during this seven minute trip through genteel piano pop, rollicking jazz and neatly-conducted emotional payoffs.
It's Still Rock and Roll to Me - Live from Long Island, 1983
The more things change, the more they stay the same. By the time this show from Nassau Coliseum in Long Island was broadcast as a HBO special Joel was a superstar coming off back-to-back number one albums and, for the first time, a number one single. That song, It's Still Rock and Roll to Me, stands out in the rowdy-but-slick running order for the way Joel kicks back at his critics with a performance that’s all split-legged, mic-stand-abusing rock showmanship. Previewing the broadcast, the New York Times’ John J. O’Connor mentioned Joel in the same breath as Bruce Springsteen before comparing him to Neil Sedaka and Perry Como. It’s the sort of stuff that has always dogged him, and this whole bit feels like a rejection of that characterisation. The fact that he still looks like an affable nerd in white tennis shoes is the real reason he pulls it off, though, so maybe everyone was right for once.
An Innocent Man - Live from Wembley, 1984
This is someone who’s in it. Another TV special, this one found Joel cresting a wave following the release of ‘An Innocent Man’, a record where he delved into his own past and dredged up some of the sounds that made him. On the title track he dialled in retro-fabulous, emotionally-wrought soul descended from Ben E. King, sending out an enduring plea for connection and understanding while pulling off some wild high notes for its expressive chorus. During this show at Wembley Arena in London he pours himself into the song, unselfconsciously clicking his fingers and rumbling through some Vic Reeves-adjacent mumbling on his way to dovetailing with backing singer Peter Hewlett for that unmistakable refrain. This cooks.
Sometimes a Fantasy - Концерт, 1987
Almost 40 years later, this whole situation seems insane. Joel — his wife Christie Brinkley and toddler child in tow — is tasked with playing a series of shows in the USSR as part of a cultural olive branch following a pact signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. During the second of three Moscow shows — following days of glad-handing, vodka, and an impromptu gig in Tbilisi with an underpowered PA that blew out his voice — Joel took umbrage with spotlights picking revellers out in the crowd. Between lines in Sometimes a Fantasy he demanded that they be shut off. “Let me do my show for Chrissakes!” he roars before sending his piano flying, leaping over the wreckage to pick up the mic and carry on singing, before smashing its stand to pieces. ‘Billy Joel Has A Tantrum’ read headlines in the Associated Press the next day, more than a little unfairly. “People in the audience want to be in the dark,” he told reporters. “They want to get loose.” Another funny detail: the AP reporter offered some serious snark by noting that Joel, “sipped a glass of water, his wrinkled blue shirt outside his trousers.” The humanity!
New York State of Mind - Live at Shea Stadium, 2008
In sending off the old Shea Stadium, Joel tapped into some old-time New York razzmatazz, inviting a cavalcade of guests including a few who had history with the place, including Paul McCartney and Roger Daltrey. But nowhere was this spirit of pomp better displayed than in Joel’s duet with Tony Bennett on New York State of Mind. This is brilliantly hammy stuff — it’s got a surprise guest spot, obviously, a show-offy piano intro, lashings of nostalgic weight brought on by the end of an era and the very fact that they’re singing a song called New York State of Mind while a true New York landmark says its farewells. Special note for sax player Mark Rivera, who looks like he’s having a fever dream while playing a solo a couple of feet away from an applauding Bennett.
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