30min before Joel hit the stage. By the time he did, not a single empty seat could be found.
I just got back from the Verizon Center where Billy Joel just played an awesome concert. As you can probably tell from the above picture, I had great seats! My mother and I were literally 20ft. or so from the stage. The tickets (bought through eBay) were a real pain to get since Paypal ended up charging twice for them causing my bank to charge me $50 bucks in overdraft fees. Luckily I managed to get the second charge refunded and somehow even managed to have my bank return the $50. While incredibly inconvenient, the hassle was totally worth it to get seats as close as they were.
Joel playing Don’t Ask Me Why.
The show itself was great. Even at 56, Joel still knows how to please an audience. Playing a setlist that included some of his lesser known songs as well as the bigger hits.
- Prelude/Angry Young Man
- My Life
- Everybody Loves You Now
- The Entertainer
- New York State Of Mind
- The Downeaster ‘Alexa’
- Zanzibar
- Allentown
- Don’t Ask Me Why
- Pressure
- Goodnight Saigon
- Movin’ Out
- An Innocent Man
- She’s Always A Woman
- Captain Jack
- Keeping The Faith
- I Go To Extremes
- The River Of Dreams
- Highway To Hell
- We Didn’t Start The Fire
- Big Shot
- It’s Still Rock And Roll To Me
- You May Be Right
- Only The Good Die Young
- Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
- Piano Man
Introducing Pressure prior to running to another keyboard on the right side of the stage.
One thing that really surprised me about this concert was the massive number of younger faces in the crowd. Of course the middle-aged to older group you’d expect to be there were, but the younger folks seemed to have more of a presence at this concert. It really shows that in times of crappy music, people will go off looking for alternatives. It also speaks for how timeless Joel’s music is considering his first hit came out in ’71.
I really had a great time and given a chance, would buy another ticket or two to another of his upcoming shows.