Latest Breaking News Online News Portal
He may be 73 years old but when Billy Joel took the stage of the ‘World’s Most Famous Arena’ as part of his monthly residency at the iconic Big Apple venue Madison Square Garden, his energy told the story of a different 73 – 1973.
That was the year The Entertainer broke into the Billboard Top 40 and Joel was a star on the rise that had something so special you couldn’t put it into words.
Fast-forward five decades and Joel’s energy still puts even the youngest of pop rockers to shame.
There were no support acts, no theatrics, no dancers, no frills – he didn’t need that. The crowd was there for one man only.
He jumped straight into his show promptly at 8.25pm on Friday, May 5, with his 1976 hit ‘Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)’ and then broke into the liberating ‘My Life’.
After enthralling renditions of ‘Everybody Loves You Now’, which the New Yorker released on his 1971 debut album Cold Spring Harbor and ‘Just the Way You Are’, he introduced himself.
Greeting the sold-out crowd of more than 20,789 fans, Joel said: “Good evening, New York City. We are at Madison Square Garden – we are the house band here.
“We are going to do a song that was not a hit single, it was from an album that came out in 1978 called ‘52ndStreet’ and this is what they used to call an album track,” he explained and immediately went on to perform ‘Zanzibar’.
What followed was ‘An Innocent Man’. Joel not only has one of the richest song catalogues in pop history, but he loves making it personal with the crowd. It felt like he did as much talking as singing on Friday, sharing stories on how his parents had their honeymoon in Niagara Falls and how he had some good news and bad news for everyone: “The bad news is, I don’t have anything to play. The good news, I don’t have to play anything new.”
Indeed, Joel hasn’t released an album in 22 years and it didn’t matter one bit on the night – the crowd came for his famous tunes ‘Allentown’, ‘Only the Good Die Young’, ‘Don’t Ask Me Why’ and ‘Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song’, which were all stellar, pumped up by Joel’s eight-piece band.
At one point, Joel left his piano to do a hilarious Mick Jagger impress for ‘Start Me Up’. His rickety knees held their own. He cracked: “You need hair for that song.”
The show took place on his beautiful wife, Alexis Roderick’s birthday, so he made sure to send his love from the stage to the crowd, where she was enjoying the show.
Joel is known for being quite the family man. He recently took some time away from the music scene to spend some quality time with Roderick and their three daughters – Della Rose, Remy Anne and Alexa Ray, whom Joel shares with his ex-wife Christie Brinkley.
He recently said on touring: “It’s not good for a relationship to be gone for that long. So, I became a homey.” If he had to put a label on it, he’d call it “semi-retirement”, to the disappointment of his many adoring fans who travel from far and wide to see him perform live.
In a touching moment, Joel stopped his usual routine to pay tribute to legendary Canadian folk singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot who passed away last week by singing a heartfelt cover of his song ‘If You Could Read My Mind’.
He told the audience before singing one of Lightfoot’s most revered tracks: “You might know him from the hit records he had. I want to say thank you and rest in peace Gordon Lightfoot.”
Joel then dedicated his own ‘The Downeaster Alexa’ to Lightfoot, whom he pictured signing the track when he wrote the Storm Front single.
The main set ended with his two-stirring stapes: ‘Scenes from an Italian Restaurant’ and ‘Piano Man’. The crowd sang them so robustly, Joel could have shut his microphone off.
With everyone on their feet, Joel kept them there for the encore, trotting out his best rockers such as ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’, ‘Uptown Girl’, ‘Big Shot’ – which is Joel at his spiteful best and the show closing ‘You May Be Right’.
So, while Joel didn’t start the fire, it was made clear that he always keeps Madison Square Garden burning.
Follow our social media accounts here on facebook.com/ExpressUSNews and @expressusnews
