I can remember the first time I saw Billy Joel in concert. I started to doubt myself when I did a search of the Internet on the sites containing a supposedly complete history of his live appearances over his entire career and I didn't find a single entry for Calgary Saddledome, which is where I saw him... I thought.

What the hell? Was I remembering wrong? No. Cannot be possible. I remember the concert well because I got tickets for myself and several of my friends. I remember that the tickets weren't all together and were scattered here and there all over the floor section of the Saddledome. I remember where I was standing for the concert (a ways back on the floor on the left side). I remember many details of the concert. I remember sleeping the whole way home in the back of my friend's station wagon, which was awesome... time flew. I remember that they didn't buy me anything (or even ask me) at Peter's Drive-In when they stopped there on the way out of town. I remember that everyone thought I was pissed off or something because I wasn't like dancing around and clapping and stuff at the concert - something I never do because it interferes with my ability to actually watch and listen, which is the point of going to a concert, is it not? Or maybe I WAS pissed off because they didn't ask me if I wanted anything from Peter's?

But I also remember that I took the furthest back tickets so my friends could have better seats, including one guy who Billy Joel was his favourite artist and another friend for whom this was his first real concert.

Benevolent, aren't I? Yah, I hear that a lot. No no... no need to thank me for my incredible kindness and sacrifice. But the least you could have done is ask me if I wanted anything at Peter's, you pricks.

So anyway, if I remember the concert so well, why is there no record of it on the Internet? Surely the Internet can't be wrong, can it?


Well, it is wrong... because sure as hell Billy Joel played the Saddledome somewhere around 1989-1990 and I saw the concert. Thankfully for my sanity I just happened to take a picture of some of my old concert ticket collection last year when I was going through my stuff in storage back in Canada.

Hmmmmm. Except that I remember my row being in the 50s somewhere (57 springs to mind, but certainly not row 41) and that I was pretty far almost over to the left side (not seat 28).

I will convince myself that this ticket is from one of the other people who went to the concert with me rather than mine because otherwise my memory is suspect.

But anyway.... that was the first time I saw Billy Joel in concert, more than 15 years ago. I saw him again on his Face-to-Face tour with Elton John in 1995 (and for those who really pay attention I also was PLANNING to go see him with Elton John in 2002 in New York when I jumped out of a taxi at Madison Square Gardens on the way to the show and went to see Roger Waters, Don Henley, Brian Wilson, and many others instead).

Seems like a long time, but believe me I would have gone to see Billy Joel in concert many more times in the interim years if he'd toured a little more frequently. He is without question one of the best performers ever and his shows are always worth the effort of going to see them. But the fact is that other than a few shows random shows, most with Elton John, (and his millennium show in New York) he hasn't toured since 1994.

Why not? I have no idea. He was making some classical music in there for a while or something. And just doing nothing, I guess. But I'll spare you the rant where I go on about how artists owe it to their fans to create music and tour.


Before you start amazing at how close I was at this concert to take such a photo I should warn you that I did NOT bring a camera and that the photos you will see below are stolen off the Internet.

You see, I've reached the conclusion that there's almost no point bringing a camera to anything anymore because so many other people are there taking pictures that you can spare yourself the hassle of stuffing a camera into your pants to avoid it being confiscated and just enjoy the concert secure in the fact that the next day you will be able to find plenty of photos posted on the Internet. This is an extension of the philosophy where you also don't have to bother writing down the songs because you can always find the set-lists on the Internet as well.

Just relax and pay attention, I say. Enjoy the show and let the other assholes take the pictures and write down the songs for you. And don't be worried if people think you are pissed off because you are watching and listening intently and not appearing to have fun. Just be sure that those people buy something for you at the Drive-Thru on the way home.


It's only fair, however, to give credit to the people who DID take these photos though. These last couple are from www.flickr.com/photos/berbera.

I love these stupid comments on Flickr about other people's photos. I love the pretentious "nice composition" type of compliment the best. As though the person who took this photo was composing anything and just kind of shooting a picture and hoping for the best.


I know what you were thinking in the previous photos.... how old Billy Joel looks. But he is 57 years old, after all. But still the difference is striking from (for example) this photo I stole from "nathan malone" on Flickr that shows Billy in 1990.

Like Peter Gabriel, Billy has decided to go with the shaved-head/goatee look in his older years, I guess. I can respect that. Some artists fight against getting older using plastic surgery. Others grow goatees and shave their heads.

Set-List (with commentary)


Thank you to www.flickr.com/photos/360 for this long shot of the Billy Joel concert. (You can also see where my seats were... considerably closer than 360's.)

Over the years of my going to concerts I've watched the technology progress and the shows get better and better in terms of sound and lights and all that stuff.

Strangely enough, Billy doesn't seem to have been affected by this. His stage is the same stage set-up I saw him use in 1990, which is the same set-up he used when I saw him in 1995. Most big name artists tour with video screens these days, on every show. Billy does not (although on some shows he did so, apparently). That's too bad, in some ways, because it allows the people at the back to have a better view. But I guess Billy is just a basic, down-to-Earth, play-the-music kind of guy. No need to be fancy and modern.

Yes, it is true that this photo looks fairly impressive and high-tech, but it's just lights. Nothing you couldn't have done 20 years ago. Maybe there's MORE servo-controlled spot lights than Billy had going in 1990, but not that many more. The show I saw last night was essentially the same as I saw in 1990.

Don't get me wrong though... that's not a complaint. Just because the stage is the same and Billy does the same kinds of things does not mean that he's repeating himself. For one thing, many artists use the same jokes on stage show after show, year after year. And with the passage of time their shows get fancier while the edge comes off their performance and voices.

I am happy to report that Billy sounded BETTER (by a long shot) last night than he did in 1990 and that he didn't use a single joke that he'd used before when I saw him. Maybe the stage is the same, but his abilities as a master showman are also still the same as well.

Angry Young Man

The concert begins with a Billy Joel classic piano show-off song. It's easy to forget to put Billy Joel's music into context with what other music was being created at the time. You can't listen to his music and think, "Oh, that sounds like the 60s or the 70s or the 80s!". It's just Billy Joel. Maybe early Billy Joel, maybe later Billy Joel, but not really sounding like anything that anyone else was making at the time.

Angry Young Man is a good example of what I call the "Progressive Rock" influence on Billy Joel. It doesn't sound anything like mid-70s progressive rock, but there are all these weird off-beat accents and interludes in the song that sound like Billy after he's listened to Genesis a few too many times. (That would be Peter Gabriel Genesis, by the way.)

My Life

The first of many tears came into my eyes when he played this song. He didn't play it the first time I saw him in Calgary and I was very disappointed. For millions this is just memories of Bosom Buddies and wondering why Billy Joel had the same kind of weird hairdo as Tom Hanks and how it was ironic that his music was the theme song on the hit television series that made Tom's career.

Or maybe that's just me?

Everybody Loves You Now

"Jesus, it's fucking hot in here," Billy comments before this song. He's right. It was fucking hot. "We'll all sweat together, I guess."

This song is from 1971, he tells us. 1971?!??? Was he making records in 1971?!????

At any rate... never heard this song before in my life.

The Entertainer

Another oldie... but this is what happens when you don't release new albums. You can skip playing half a dozen songs off your new album that no one really wants to hear and just play some oldies instead.

Honesty

Oh yah. I forgot about this song. Nice surprise.

Zanzibar

Yet another old one I've never heard before.

Miami 2017

I wonder if Billy will play this in Miami in 2017?

Yet another of those Genesis-sounding things from the mid-70s.

New York State of Mind

Billy Joel is a bluesman sometimes. This is where he and Elton John are kind of similar. You forget that they are kind like very Ray Charles inspired players. Piano player bluesmen.

Leningrad

This was a nice surprise. I hadn't expected to hear this one.

"Stop 'em at the 38th parallel..."

Goodnight Saigon

Someone yells something out from the audience. "What's that?" Billy asks. "You love me?"

The audience laughs.

"I love you too." He says. "I can't see you, but I love you. God knows how many times that's happened."

And for those Billy Joel concert fans who might wonder... yes he did have his roadies come out and sing along on the "We would all go down together" parts in this song.

The Downeaster Alexa

This was cool to hear. The band is stripped down and there's no fiddle player so the song sounded strange somehow.

She's Always a Woman

Oh yah... another song I forgot about.

Allentown

By this point I am singing along with every line in every song. I always liked Billy Joel because he and I had identical vocal range and I could sing anything he could.

Don't Ask Me Why

Best line is always... "Don't 'axe' me why...."

Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)

You gotta love singing along to "Working too hard can give you a hard attack-ack-ack-ack...."

This song and New York State of Mind were my first introductions to New York City as a young person.

I always wondered about Mr Katchatori's. Sounds like a Japanese place but of course it's not. It's Cacciatore's, of course. Welcome to proper Italian pronunciation. But I bet they have good pasta there.

And thanks to this song how many millions of non-New Yorkers knew that there was this restaurant (Japanese or Italian) down on Sullivan Street in New York, and that it was across from a Medical Centre?

Keeping The Faith

Like how New York State of Mind first introduced into my brain New York locations like "Chinatown" or "Riverside" and publications like "The Daily News". Or that Greyhound had a "Hudson River Line". (Come to think of it... it's like a travel guide, that song.)

And like how Movin' Out inducted me further into that mysterious metropolis called New York City, this song was my first introduction to a number of fashion items:

Flagg Brothers Matador Boots Iridescent socks Tight Chinos Shark Skin Jackets with velvet collar Ditty-Bop shades The Pompadour hairdo

This song also introduced the young me to a variety of different consumer products:

A fresh pack of Luckies - coming from Canada and being young I never heard of Lucky Strike before this song.

Trojans

And the weirdest of all... Sen-Sen. What the hell is Sen-Sen?!?? They have it by the counter at gas stations when you go to pay.

I tried it a couple times. Nasty. But I guess that's what you had to do to get some before the breath-mint was properly invented.

An Innocent Man

I did a double-take when the opening notes of this song started.

A roadie runs out on stage to set up a microphone for Billy and the keyboard player takes a seat at Billy's piano.

Starting off singing Spanish Harlem over the chords, and then into Stand By Me, he waves his hands "no" and starts singing the song.

I couldn't believe it. This is a song that Billy Joel actually almost stopped playing a LONG time ago (like early 80s) because it has parts that were too high for him to sing as he got older. The way he got around that for a long time was to have someone else sing the high parts for him. (It's a famous thing on his live albums for him to introduce the person who sang the high parts at the end of this song.)

This concept scared me as a young musician... the idea that some day I might not be able to hit the same notes because they were too high.

But I guess I should have kept the faith, because oh my god.... Billy Joel sang the high parts himself.

Now... how is that possible? (I thought.) He's a more than 20 years older than he was when he couldn't hit them in the first place and had to get someone else to sing.

Did he get surgery or something? Did all those years off just help his voice out by giving it a rest?

Well... I don't want to believe that Billy employed some sampling or technological trickery (Autotune anyone?) because he is otherwise such a completely authentic performer. But then again, who cares? It's better to give it a try and let technology help you a bit than it is to get some completely other person to sing it for you.

"Some people say they will never believe another promise they hear in the dark...."

River of Dreams

This song always brings back memories of Elkwater lake at sunrise... I would probably get sentimental on you here if I wasn't jaded and my heart broken once too many times. Ex-girlfriends? Fuck them.

Highway to Hell


Highway to Hell?!?? AC/DC?!??? This was cool. Billy had one of his roadies (a big fat guy named Chainsaw) come out and sing this song while he played guitar.

The crowd loved it and it sounded pretty good, which goes to show that a great band and 15.000 hyped-up people can make anything sound great.

We Didn't Start The Fire

As if to prove himself yet again that at 57 years of age he is sounding and playing and performing better than ever, Billy Joel does this song at the right tempo.

I've noticed in seeing and hearing him play live that this song is often played just slightly slowly. Fair enough, since it's got a lot of words to get your tongue around, but that VERY subtle tempo change always struck me as taking all the life out of the song. But now, at age 57, he plays it perfect speed and it was amazing.

It's Still Rock and Roll to Me


Billy Joel always wanted to be a guitar player or mic-stand flinging front man, but being a piano player sort of contradicted those dreams. That said, Billy is the master of mic-stand flinging front man style.

This is another song that introduced me to out-of-date fashion: tab collars, white-wall tyres, pink side-winders, Beau Brummel, baby. But this song also introduced me to the idea that sometimes it doesn't matter what's new, what's in style, what's cool, because those are all just passing things. Be yourself, I guess. That's always cool.


This photo is a good example to show you where I was sitting. This is almost exactly the view I had from my seats. Pretty good, actually. These are the seats I bought a couple months back. I checked at the box-office right before the concert and true to my philosophy that you can always find good seats at Ahoy at the last second there were floor seats available just before the show. Oh well. These were good too, of course.

You May Be Right

I forgot to mention... Unlike most artists these days Billy didn't have an intermission, or even walk off stage. He played 2 straight hours before walking off for the encores at the end of this song. Unbelievable.

Only The Good Die Young

I predicted three encores after he walked off stage. The first is an obvious one.

Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

This is an interesting choice for an encore, I think. I was surprised.

Piano Man

It's funny that as much as I like Billy Joel, this really isn't one of my favourite songs. But it's one that he always closes with, of course, so I leave every show with it stuck in my head.

In truth, it's a pretty deep song about life and disappointment. I should have listened to the words more closely when I "wore a younger man's clothes" because it would be the story of my life, everyone's life I guess.

I am sure that I could be something, if I could get out of this place. Instead, I sit around and people ask me "Man, what are you doing here?"