Billy Joel Tears It Up at Boston’s Garden
Recommended beverage to go with this show:
A bottle of red…or a bottle of white,
It all depends upon your appetite
A bottle of red…or a bottle of white,
It all depends upon your appetite
I flew up from my home in Washington, DC for this show.
Billy Joel rocked the Fleet Center (newly renamed the TD Banknorth Garden) in Boston on January 18. It was a concert that exhilarated long-time fans, like me, and also satisfied fans of his well-known hits. Joel devoted much of the show to timeless classics of the ’70s and early ’80s, some of which he has seldom played live since those years.
Joel played songs that spanned his entire career but mercifully skipped the entire Bridge album (although I do have a soft spot for "Baby Grand" and "Big Man on Mulberry Street" and either of those would've been good). He opened with the fiery “Angry Young Man” from the 1976 album, Turnstiles. He hesitated before playing “New York State of Mind”— the one other song he would play from that album—for a Boston crowd, but said he decided it was all right since the Pats and the Giants both were out of the playoffs.
He treated fans to rare gems such as “Everybody Loves You Now” from the album, Cold Spring Harbor, his only solo album that predates Piano Man. And while he played the well-known “Big Shot” from his 52nd Street album, he also whipped out the jazzy tunes, “Stiletto” and “Zanzibar.” The latter was a bold move in Boston given the line, “but the Yankees grab the headlines every time,” during which the crowd booed and hissed. I, of course, cheered.
And, while he played the popular classics “It’s Still Rock & Roll To Me” and “You May Be Right,” he also gave fans two other goodies from the Glass Houses album, “Sometimes a Fantasy,” and “Sleeping with the Television On.” He performed the latter two at keyboards set up at the far corners of the stage to play to the fans seated behind him. There are no obstructed-view seats at a Joel concert and, in fact, on this tour, his piano revolves at times to face fans seated behind the stage.
Joel also offered up four songs from his Grammy-winning classic album, The Stranger, including “Movin’ Out,” the title of his hit Broadway show. Two songs from that album, “Only the Good Die Young” and “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” were performed back-to-back to open the encore. During “Scenes,” Joel inserted an alcoholic substitute with a chuckle, singing, “a bottle of white, a bottle of red, perhaps a ginger ale instead.”
Other old-school fan favs included “Ballad of Billy the Kid” from Piano Man; “Keepin’ the Faith,” an underappreciated, infectious track from Innocent Man; and a trio from Nylon Curtain: “Pressure,” “Allentown,” and the Vietnam Vet tribute, “Goodnight Saigon.”
Vocally, Joel sounded in top form and seemed in good spirits. Perhaps his new wife got him off of cigarettes. His band consisted of musicians he’s toured with for decades, including Rich Cannata who performed the sax solos on all of Joel’s records in the ’70s and Mark Rivera, who played sax in the band and on albums beginning in the ’80s. Though primarily on sax, they showed their versatility with other woodwinds, playing flutes on “She’s Always a Woman” and flugelhorns on “Zanzibar.” Speaking of versatility, long-time backing vocalist Crystal Taliefero, who sounded fantastic, also backed Joel on percussion and sax.
Joel seldom performs covers at concerts, given his vast collection of originals to pull from, but he did perform one cover in the set—“In the Midnight Hour”—in tribute to Wilson Pickett who died that day. He ended the show, of course, with “Piano Man,” and let the sold-out crowd sing the final chorus on its own. He then spoke the wise words that he has ended his concerts with for decades, “Don’t take sh*t from anybody.”
At this concert, sports rivalries seemed to vanish and, for a night, New York and Boston seemed in complete harmony.
posted by Dana @ 10:41 AM
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