How I lost a game of musical chairs to Billy Joel
It’s June 22, 1990, and I’m fulfilling a childhood fantasy by patrolling center field at Yankee Stadium.
For a few fleeting moments I am Bobby Murcer, circa 1972. This being 1990, when the Bronx Bombers bombed into last place with a 67-95 record, I couldn’t do much worse than Roberto Kelly covering the old DiMaggio and Mantle real estate.
Alas, that’s not why I’m here. I finally made it onto the field by buying tickets to see Billy Joel. He’s my younger brother’s favorite performer, who is in the lineup along with our older brother and three friends.
I’m feeling pretty cocky that I was able to get seats close to the stage from Ticketmaster in a Stamford video store. To boot, it is my 100th concert, coming on the heels of seeing the likes of Warren Zevon, the Smithereens and Graham Parker at much smaller venues.
The Piano Man at Yankee Stadium on summer’s first Friday night. What can go wrong?
Well, my seat is filled by a stranger. We compare tickets that look identical. I’m suspicious because I know mine is legit, and we summon an usher.
The usher notices something I didn’t. The seat number is listed in two places, and mine don’t match. I leave the rest of my team behind as she takes me to the other seat. Someone is filling that one too.
“You’re going to have to talk to someone at the Ticketmaster booth at second base,” she says.
It takes me even longer to get to second than the Yankees of the era, who have fewer hits than Joel. When I finally reach the front of the line, I’m directed to seek help in the mezzanine.
I spot my teammates heading my way. They have been kicked out of their seats as well.
We dismiss the mezzanine idea, as we might never get back on the field. Ushers offer different answers. Since Yankee Stadium only hosted one previous concert (the Beach Boys in ’88, unless you want to count the Rev. Billy Graham in ’57 or
Pope Paul VI in ’65), none of them really know the seating plan. And they become increasingly more rude.
The music starts and we’ve lost the game of musical chairs. Suddenly, frustration gives a different meaning to every Billy Joel lyric coming from the stage. Yes, “a storm front’s coming.” Yeah, I am an “angry young man” (remember, this is 32 years ago). Yup, “we all respond to pressure ...”
Before “I go to the extremes” (I could do this all day), we decide to stand just to the right side of the stage. About the only person closer is Joel’s thenwife, Christie Brinkley. Ushers try a few times to displace us. We glare back. This actually works. Still, it’s hard to enjoy any concert while fuming.
Joel caps off the show with his traditional showclosing parting wisdom, this time with a prelude appropriate to the setting.
“Do like Billy Martin did,” he says, while wearing a Yankees cap. “Don’t take any s - - - from anybody.”
(It was not lost on me that during his early “Piano Man” lounge singer days, Joel appropriated the name of the notorious Yankees manager.)
I take Billy the Kid’s advice and go back to Ticketmaster in Stamford the next day. The clerk explains that the snafu happened to a batch of tickets, including ones for Joel’s second Yankee Stadium gig that night. This being 1990, there’s no way to reach customers. As a career writer and editor, it’s salt in the wound that I was thwarted by a typo.
The clerk gives me a number to call at Ticketmaster headquarters. They eventually agree to pay back the $180 for the six tickets. But here’s the catch: They decline to refund the Ticketmaster service charge.
“But that’s the part that failed,” I argue. “Billy Joel didn’t do anything wrong.”
I settle for the $180 and pay back my brothers and friends. Three decades later, a similar seat to see Joel at Madison Square Garden would cost $850 (plus an indefensible $125.80 Ticketmaster service fee — they seem to be trying to keep up with the inflation pace of college tuition). To afford that, you’d have to live in Greenwich. Which makes it all the more impressive that tickets to see Joel and an admirable lineup of other performers at the Greenwich
Town Party Saturday night sold for a mere $85.
Joel hasn’t made many off-stage cameos in Connecticut during his career. His 2002 stay at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan to temper alcohol addiction was cut short because of media coverage (which, alas, included us). He’s also docked his boat in Greenwich a few times and snagged an honorary degree from Fairfield University.
But Connecticut has been a reliable concert stop throughout his career, mostly at New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Hartford Civic Center and Mohegan Sun. Other gigs included Central Connecticut State University in 1996, Toad’s Place in New Haven in 1980, Fairfield U. in 1977, Connecticut College in New London in 1976 and Quinnipiac College in 1974. The closest previous show to Greenwich was likely at SUNY Purchase in 1976.
Digging into our newspaper archives delivers some gems. An October 1978 interview reveals he was in Fenway Park for the Bucky Dent playoff game a few weeks earlier. ABC caught Joel and his band in Yankees caps and interviewed them — but didn’t recognize him or his name.
Whenever I want to get a rise from friends who hail from the other side of Long Island Sound, I respond to their “Joel’s a genius” rhetoric by dismissing his songbook as derivative. Everything strives to sound like someone else. “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” is a Phil Spector homage, “52nd Street” is faux jazz, “Glass Houses” is punk without the bite, “Innocent Man” honors pre-Fab Four hits, followed by “The Nylon Curtain,” which emulates the Beatles’ experimental work. And so on, until we reach misguided late-’80s attempts to apparently mimic arena bands.
And yet, I know his work as well as anyone. Unlike everyone else, I respect his artistic decision not to release a new album since 1993. I always hoped Joel would find a sound to claim as his own. At 73, he insists he still writes music all the time, but is done with lyrics.
So maybe he has found his sound. Something original, something authentic. That doesn’t mean he has to share it. He can just take Billy Martin’s sage advice.