Anthony King: 2008

Saw Billy Joel at Shea tonight.  It was three hours of pure awesome.

There were moments when I really thought Billy Joel may pass out or have a heart attack from exhaustion or heat stroke.  He looked beat-up and spent.  But he really gave everything, hitting high notes I have not heard him hit since the River of Dreams tour.  I guess you can do that again when you’re no longer drunk every night.

Oh yeah, he also had a couple special guests:

Tony Bennett, dueting on “New York State of Mind”

Garth Brooks, singing “Shameless” (written by Joel, but Brooks made it a country hit)

Steven Tyler, singing “Walk This Way” (I’m not sure Billy even stayed on stage for this)

Roger Daltry, singing “My Generation” (Billy smashed a guitar into pieces at the end of the song)

and

Sir Paul McCartney, singing “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Let It Be”

All the guests were amazing.  Billy didn’t bring Paul out until the second encore.  Then he sang “Piano Man” and brought Paul back out to sing the last song ever sung at Shea (“Let It Be”).

Pretty gracious to let someone else end your concert, but very fitting for Billy to let Paul sing the last song since (a) The Beatles played the first concert there 43 years ago and (b) Billy Joel has clearly always wanted to be Paul McCartney.