Other things you missed if you didn’t make the show:
+ Rufus Wainwright opened. Rufus fucking Wainwright! He told the audience that he loves Billy Joel, as well as Long Island, and he totally made the wait leading up to Joel’s 10:30 start time super-sweet. Sadly, a lot of the seats around us were empty during his performance, as a lot of people who came to the show waited it out in the bar. Grey Goose and Stella Artois rather than “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk,” I guess.
+ A million couples cuddling and swaying to “She’s Always a Woman to Me,” as if it were a truly adorable love song. Because the lyrics, “She can lead you to love/ She can take you or leave you/ She can ask for the truth/ But she’ll never believe/ And she’ll take what you give her as long as it’s free/ Yeah, she steals like a thief/ But she’s always a woman to me” are what you think whenever you look into your loved one’s eyes, right?
+ A million millennials who have probably never seen TV’s first TV show about men dressing in drag, Bosom Buddies, bopping around to “My Life.”
+ Rufus Wainwright and Billy Joel singing “New York State of Mind” as a duet.
+ A tearjerker tribute to Joe Cocker – Billy Joel channeled as much of the dearly departed English singer’s intensity and throaty depth as he could in a surprisingly moving rendition of “With a Little Help From My Friends.”
+ Finally, sitting in the audience as a not-particularly-huge Billy Joel fan and realizing that, even though you don’t own a single recording the singer has ever made, you know every single lyric to every single song he’s playing.
This article appears in Dec 31, 2014 – Jan 6, 2015.