Billy Joel: Live at Shea Stadium Blu-ray Review
Sing us your songs, you're the piano man.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, March 10, 2011
Billy Joel was one of the first concerts I went to, when I was still a kid and probably shouldn't have been exposed to the "herbal enhancements" older participants were partaking of. Joel blew my mind that night in a free ranging concert that saw him covering his then recent hits from "Streetlife Serenade" and "Piano Man" as well as a previous album that I think I was probably the only person in attendance that night had ever heard of, "Cold Spring Harbor." (I remember being the sole person clapping when he started talking about it). Being a keyboard player myself, I had relatively few Top 40 piano heroes back in those guitar-dominated days. The 1960's had been an era largely of guitar oriented bands, and in fact only a few pianists in the pop-rock world like Ray Charles and Sergio Mendes managed to break through with substantial chart action as the decade wound down. While you could make an argument that Paul McCartney qualifies as a pianist, the truth is The Beatles were never thought of as a keyboard-oriented band, and though a lot of McCartney's early post-Beatles work did in fact feature keys ("Maybe I'm Amazed" is a great example), for some reason Paul never really seemed to "be" a pianist in most people's minds. As the 1970's moved more toward singer-songwriters, piano fans had had to wait several years for a new generation of piano men (and women) to take the stage and pound the ivories to within an inch of their lives. In fact the only real piano presences on the charts then, at least in terms of general public consciousness, were Joel and Elton John. Joel has never made many bones about being firmly in the Tin Pan Alley tradition. Joel in fact seems proud of his usually inerrant songcraft. While he may not be the most innovative writer out there, he consistently has proven himself to be a savvy craftsman who is able to pull instantly memorable hooks out of thin air and weld them onto often surprisingly thoughtful lyrics. Elton John, who has done a well received duo tour with Joel, has himself recently gone public with his dismay that Joel's penchant for drinking too much may hobble Joel's performances (I remember to this day Joel had a glass of whiskey on the music stand of the grand he played the night I saw him, from which he drank rather liberally). Maybe the last few years have seen a slow dissolution on the part of Joel, who has famously had a few run-ins with various law enforcement agencies due to driving drunk and the like, but if this
Live at Shea Stadium concert is any indication, Joel had it all together for at least a little while back in 2008, when this concert was filmed as part of the
Last Play at Shea series.
Bruce Springsteen is often heralded as the music world's working class hero, a guy who is able to brilliantly articulate a blue collar
ethos. I'd argue that Billy Joel shares many of those same characteristics, except that Joel isn't shy about merging that blue collar consciousness with one that is only too aware it's "made it" in the world of showbiz. From Joel's first hit single, "Piano Man," there was a sometimes aching self awareness to Joel's lyrics, and one which didn't mind in subsequent years skewering the hand that fed him (his follow up single to "Piano Man," "The Entertainer," is a perfect example). Joel has been remarkably self-confessional in his long career, but he's also had a sometimes underrated social consciousness which has been revealed in such disparate pieces as "Allentown" and "We Didn't Start the Fire." When a songwriter is as facile as Joel obviously is, it's easy to get seduced by the sheen and ignore the very real substance underneath.
This is an amazing concert which sought to cap Shea Stadium's long (and somewhat unexpected) life as a concert venue. When the Beatles stormed Shea on August 15, 1965, no one had ever really thought of a sports stadium as an acceptable locale for a live music concert, but in those days, there simply weren't that many venues capable of seating as many people as The Beatles attracted, and so Shea Stadium it was. Over the ensuing decades, a host of top acts have played it, and in fact some of those artists show up to perform with Joel here. Over 110,000 fans crowded into Shea to witness the end of an era, as Joel wrapped up Shea's days with an amazing display of rock finesse.
Joel is in amazingly good form throughout this concert, with only a slight wobble or two in some falsetto passages to bring attention to the fact he isn't a young "angry man" any longer. Backed by an incredible band which grows to include a string section for such tunes as "The Ballad of Billy Kid" (complete with those Copland-esque opening string fifths), Joel breezes through a career retrospective that reveals him to be one of the most versatile writers of his generation. True, Joel's songs are structurally staid at times, but there's so much color and nuance to both his harmonies and especially his often brilliantly incisive lyrics, that it's easy not to care very much. Joel also allows several members of the band to stretch out into some awesome solos on several tunes.
There are a number of highlights throughout this concert, but some of the duets will probably strike a lot of viewers and listeners as the most unforgettable moments. Tony Bennett takes the stage to share the vocal honors on a gritty "New York State of Mind." Joel crosses over into quasi-country land with Garth Brooks on "Shameless." Younger music fans will probably get a kick out of seeing the "old master" pair up with John Mayer. And one of the Fab Four who broke open Shea as a concert venue, none other than Sir Paul McCartney, brings the house down with "I Saw Her Standing There" and the concert closer, "Let it Be."
Shea is so overwhelmingly huge that it would seem any sort of intimacy isn't even a remote possibility. But with really brilliant multi-camera coverage and an affable and often self-effacing performance from Joel, most viewers and listeners of this phenomenal two and a half hour
tour de force will probably feel they've gotten up close and personal with one of the most epochal piano men of the last half century.
Billy's set list includes:
Angry Young Man
My Life
Summer, Highland Falls
Everybody Loves You Now
Zanzibar
New York State of Mind (with Tony Bennett)
Allentown
The Ballad of Billy the Kid
She's Always a Woman
Goodnight Saigon
Miami 2017
Shameless (with Garth Brooks)
This is the Time (with John Mayer)
Keeping the Faith
Captain Jack
Lullabye
The River of Dreams/A Hard Day's Night
We Didn't Start the Fire
You May Be Right
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant
Only the Good Die Young
I Saw Her Standing There (with Paul McCartney)
Take Me Out to the Ballgame
Piano Man
Let it Be (with Paul McCartney)
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