BusyBee

Last night, Billy Joel rocked the Burswood Dome for over two hours of pure rock and roll joy. He came to play, and play he did as he launched his Australian tour in front of an adoring Perth crowd. The energy level for the evening was set from the opening song, when he launched into Angry Young Man, and did not drop for the whole show. Even when jet lag threatened to kick in, Billy used it to raise the energy, not lose it.

This was a greatest hits concert, Billy Joel through the ages, as he showcased number one hit after number one hit, taking the audience straight to New York, New Jersey and Brooklyn as he paid homage to his roots. Allen Town had the audience jumping, recalling their youth and being transported back to the time when they first heard Billy Joel’s haunting lyrics and kick-ass tunes.

The Burswood Dome is not everyone’s favourite venue when it comes to decent sound quality, but the crew nailed it last night, reproducing studio quality sound and a familiarity which meant you could close your eyes and be listening to any of his live albums. Billy Joel’s band are a classy bunch of extremely talented musicians and vocalists, although I have to say that Chrystal, the amazing percussionist/vocalist/sax player nearly stole the show.
I have one small complaint, and it is directed at the, granted, somewhat older, crowd - don’t come to a concert and expect that the audience will sit down all night so that you can see the stage from your seat. If you don’t want to dance or be part of the interactive concert experience, stay home, put on a Billy Joel DVD and turn out the lights! For $200.00 a ticket, if I want to dance to everyone of the rockin’ tunes The Entertainer was cranking out, I damn well will! Please don’t think me rude when I politely refuse your request to sit down during Only The Good Die Young!

There were lots of fun surprises during the night, including a truly haunting rendition of a religious anthem - those who were there will know what I mean - and by the end of the lengthy encore, the crowd was begging Billy Joel to get out the harmonica, sit down at the piano and answer our call to “sing us a song”. And The Piano Man did. We all went home happy. God Bless you Billy Joel! Best of luck for the rest of the Australian tour. As the summer of concerts really kicks off for Perth, the bar has certainly been set very high.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 8th, 2006 at 2:01 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.