Friday, March 03, 2006
Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden
Last night Mrs. TigerHawk, the Son, a friend of the Son, and I took the train into New York and saw Billy Joel on the 9th of a record-breaking 11 consecutive sold-out nights at Madison Square Garden. Our seats were three rows up directly behind the stage, and in this case that meant that they were spectacular. Had I focused on that fact before I left home, I would have brought my camera, and that would have been something. As it is, you'll have to be content with my scintillating "word pictures," or move the frack on to something else.
There are, obviously, a huge number of Billy Joel fans in the New York area. They know the lyrics by heart, and give a Joel concert the feeling of a sing-along. Any little reference in the lyrics to some neighborhood in New York brought pockets of cheers -- except, bizarrely, nobody cheered when he sang "I walked through Bedford Stuy alone" in "You May Be Right" -- and the B&T crowd roused itself mightily when the families of "Allentown" "spent their weekends on the Jersey shore," which lyric proves that Joel really knows nothing about New Jersey.1 And certain lyrics demand to be shouted: who knew that you were supposed to shout "You got a nice white dress and a party at your confirmation"? "We Didn't Start The Fire" (hilarious flash video here, by the way) is post-war history for most of these people -- how many of them would even have heard of Santayana otherwise? -- but one still doesn't expect to hear "JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say" booming joyously over the Garden (I myself have always been partial to "Chubby Checker, 'Psycho', Belgians in the Congo", perhaps because I'm a neo-imperialist who likes horror flicks). [UPDATE: Corrected.]
Joel and his excellent band were obviously having a good time. Joel, who is obviously free of any requirement to be smooth or cool in front of his die-hard but decidedly frumpy middle-aged suburban fans -- I did not see a single obvious non-white in the audience -- opened up with a rousing "I Go To Extremes," pounding away at his keyboard with his rear end at one point and kicking over the stool at another, all in a mockery of bad boy rock and roll. He announced before "52nd Street" that "I've been told this song is politically incorrect, but I don't give a shit," and nobody in his audience did, either. I'm not sure why, unless it's "we're going to have a little soul parade" that upsets people. Probably, since I found at least this example of that lyric having been changed. Joel's on-stage "Big Shot" was hilarious, with Joel pantomiming "big shots" of all kinds -- an obvious Italian "big shot," complete with gestures, and a fascist big-shot, complete with goose-stepping. You haven't lived until you've seen Billy Joel goose-step in Madison Square Garden.
After the opening, Joel settled down into a series of slower songs, including "The Ballad of Billy the Kid", "New York State of Mind" and "Vienna". The crowd didn't really heat up until "Allentown," roughly the tenth song, but from that point on it was on its feet stomping. Among the 26 songs (including the encore), highlights included the, er, rousing "Captain Jack" (Mrs. TigerHawk claims that song was a favorite of Bill Clinton, which perhaps explains why it made its way into an early Hillary Clinton campaign event), "Movin' Out" (fourteen songs in, and the first from The Stranger), "She's Always a Woman" and "Matter of Trust." Joel took no break, but picked up a guitar and turned the vocals over to one of his roadies, who was to sing what Joel called a "spiritual song" that we might want to reflect upon in a quiet moment. It turned out to be AC/DC's "Highway to Hell," and it got the place stomping. From there Joel cut into "We Didn't Start The Fire" and rolled right through "Big Shot" to the end. We got three encore songs from my high school years: "Only The Good Die Young," "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant," and "Piano Man." In the last, Joel stopped singing and shut down the band for one of the choruses, and just drank in 20,000 fans singing a song he wrote more than thirty years ago.
Must be one heckuva good feeling.
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1. Any genuine New Jerseyan would have written "spent their weekends down the Jersey shore." Duh.
9 Comments:
By 
Cassandra, at
Fri Mar 03, 10:56:00 AM:
Not someone I would have thought to go see in concert, but wow - when you go through the list of songs, what a lot of great memories :)
Billy Joel always reminds me of college - a lifetime ago.
By cakreiz, at
Fri Mar 03, 03:59:00 PM:
Well, I'm impressed. I made a reference several weeks ago on a non-T Hawk blog to "We didn't start the fire". I was lambasted by Joel-haters (only two, actually-but it felt like many more). Everyone admires Joel's early work but his post-"Uptown Girl" stuff was stalwart, including the haunting "And So It Goes" and the entire "River of Dreams" CD. My belief is that he was unfairly tarnished by the "Marry a Super Model" brush (along with general rock bad behavior.)
I'm very envious, Hawk. The guy's a major talent. I trust that you and the wife had a wonderful time.
By cakreiz, at
Fri Mar 03, 04:02:00 PM:
I noticed that he performed "Matter of Trust". Did he play guitar? He did on the video anyway. GREAT SONG.
By TigerHawk, at
Fri Mar 03, 04:58:00 PM:
cakriez - I can't remember whether he played the guitar during "Matter of Trust." He did play the guitar some (including during "Highway to Hell," which was hilarious), but I don't remember whether he did for "Matter of Trust." His obvious first love is the keyboard.
By cakreiz, at
Fri Mar 03, 05:06:00 PM:
I was surprised to see his guitar work on the "Matter of Trust" video- that's why I asked. A little AC/DC, huh? Great. The guy's versatile and talented.
Apparently there's a bad boy chef on Discovery Channel named Tony Bourdain who says, "no Billy Joel or Grateful Dead allowed in my kitchen." I get the Dead. I don't get Joel.
By 
, at
Fri Mar 03, 09:19:00 PM:
Only in N.Y. could he sell out that many shows.
By , at
Fri Mar 03, 09:39:00 PM:
I saw him live several years ago, and I'm sorry I missed this one. I wonder if Liberty Devito is still playing drums with him.
Great stuff.
By , at
Thu Mar 09, 11:34:00 PM:
BTW:
there’s really great stuff here today
By , at
Sat Mar 18, 05:58:00 PM:
Well, judging by Joel's boffo concert in Washington, D.C., on the eve of St. Patrick's Day, we saw precisely the same performance, two weeks and 240 miles apart. I still can't fathom how he stayed on stage for 2 1/2 hours without a break to speak of, except the "roadie"'s Highway to Hell. Who was that guy?
Chris from D.C.
EveThursday
