Replay concert magic with live recordings

It was “I Saw Her Standing There” that broke me.

Not the Beatles seminal version — and certainly not the Tiffany remake from the ‘80s — but the live take that Billy Joel pulled out during his “Last Play at Shea” shows at New York’s Shea Stadium in 2008.

I was in the audience the night that Joel, playing the final concerts before Shea’s demolition and the rise of the Mets’ new home of Citi Field, introduced “Sir Paul McCartney” as the band kicked into the first notes of the song and a grinning McCartney strolled out and exchanged nods with Joel.

As we later learned via interviews with both artists, McCartney had literally arrived at the stadium minutes earlier with a police escort from JFK, where he had flown in from London in an attempt to make an appearance during Joel’s show. (The Beatles performed the first concert at Shea Stadium, hence the full-circle connection.)

Those types of concert moments are indescribable, even more than a decade later and from someone whose job it is to describe concert moments.

But when the song, from Joel’s “Live at Shea Stadium: The Concert” album, popped up on my MP3 player while taking a sanity walk on a nature trail, I stopped in my tracks.

In that moment, the beauty of the live music experience, the communal exchange of energy, the “Omigodwhatishappening” surprises, the reality of our aging music superstars — all of it walloped me with an aching pang. And yeah, I cried a little.