Billy Joel doesn’t tour anymore. He’ll play his monthly residence show at Madison Square Gardens and usually one or two other shows a month. Luckily for us his show on Friday night in Tampa was his third time in Central Florida in as many years, and it might just have been his best. Sure, last time was for NYE and featured a special guest appearance by AC/DC’s Brian Johnson but this time around the set list was what everyone wanted to hear.
The best problem to have in the music industry is having too many hits – it only becomes a problem in the sense unless the concert goes for four or five hours not everyone’s favorite song will be played. His last few stops in town saw him digging really deep in his catalog leaving even of his biggest fans (myself included) losing interest mid show. This time, for example, saw some of his biggest hits “We Didn’t Start The Fire”, “Uptown Girl” and “The Longest Time” played – all three were skipped over in the last two shows.
And as always, no pun intended, Joel is the entertainer. Self-depreciating humor, snippets of other musicians songs, and banter with the crowd filled the voids between songs. When the audience picked “The Longest Time” over “An Innocence Man” (twice he gave the audience choice between songs) he quipped how he couldn’t sing it as high as when he wrote it, said he needed to warm up with band first (which brought upon a snippet of “the Lion Sleeps Tonight”) then laughing, he asked his band which person started the song. After all was said and done the a Capella song was strongly delivered making it a show highlight.
Joel also paid tribute to some of the musicians recently lost. Early in the show he tackled David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” with him and his band playing the first half of the song, and later performed a solo version of the Eagles’ “Desperardo”. In the middle of ‘River of Dreams”, as he has done in recently years, him and the band launch into a snippet of another classic rock song before circling back and finishing off the song. This time it was a full-song performance of “Take It Easy” – another tribute to the late Glenn Frey.
Here’s “Rebel Rebel”:
While we finish up our Billy Joel review from last night at Amalie Arena here's a clip of him playing tribute to Bowie with a cover of "Rebel Rebel":
Posted by Tone Critic on Saturday, January 23, 2016
Here’s “River of Dreams” into “Take It Easy”:
While we finish up our Billy Joel review from last night at Amalie Arena here's a clip of him playing tribute to Bowie with a cover of "Rebel Rebel":
Posted by Tone Critic on Saturday, January 23, 2016
What sets Joel apart from most is how huge his hits are – there are only a few artists that can close the show with the run of huge hit after such as he did: “Scenes from Italian Restaurant”, “Piano Man”, ” Uptown Girl”, It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me”, “Big Shot”, “You May Be Right” and “Only Good Die Young”. And that’s not including the two Led Zeppelin covers he sprinkled in before and after “You May Be Right”.
Hopefully Central Florida is lucky enough to see Joel a fourth time in as many years next year – after-all he wrote a song titled “Miami 2017” – surely he has to return to Florida in 2017?
