Took my girls to Madison square garden last night to see one old man and 25K fans. A record 50 consecutive shows in the garden, and as the 70 years old puts it “it’s not like I am the most illustrious rock star out there... but hey, you guys keep buying the tickets,” and as he turns back to the piano he utters “as if I need the money...” not your regular rock concert.
The crowd slips into a multiple-question routine as Billy reads album year and two or three song names from it. The crowd roars and the band starts playing. It’s like all twenty-five thousand of us are sitting in his living room, and there are just too many songs to play, so we pick a few from each album... the crowd votes for “She’s got away,” ending with the inevitable “I cannot live without her anyway” line. Billy looks up (with one eye, the other stays half shut all through the show) and says, “and then divorce and I learned to live without her...” The girls don’t get it. An hour and a half into it, the jet leg gains the upper hand, and the girls fall asleep just in time not to see my tears as “play me a song, oh piano man” echoes through the stadium.
Billy Joel is New York just as much as the big French lady with the torch out on the bay is. If he passed away tomorrow, he would never leave. In the final throws, he gets up from the piano chubby and bold, picks up a guitar, and goes “it's still rock and roll to me”. The girls wake up. I feel privileged and a bit old myself. Either way, We all left in a New York state of mind...
This was all four years ago. Guess who is playing at the Garden tonight...
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