Billy Joel delivers hits, wit at Hard Rock Live concert
A warm and wisecracking Billy Joel was exactly what the room full of Brenda and Eddies wanted him to be Friday night at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, playing the role of benevolent jukebox while cranking out one fan favorite after another, with a few surprises.
It didn’t have to be that way. As he explained, with a smile, early on, “I’m 70 and I don’t give a s---.”
After ending 2019 with a hometown performance at Madison Square Garden in New York, Joel opened the new year in the sixth borough in front of a sold-out crowd that needed little encouragement to get on their feet once he got rocking.
The South Florida favorite was making his first appearance at the new Hard Rock Live — after asking if he was playing in a casino, Joel offered an impromptu refrain from Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” — and he should have come away impressed with its pristine acoustics and versatile lighting and video effects.
After a thoughtful opening — “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)” — Joel journeyed through two dozen songs over the course of two hours. For most of the songs he could have left the vocals to the fans, a little more diverse than you might expect, who seemed to know every lyric and were more than willing to sing along.
Dressed in classic Long Island goombah — black suit, with a black shirt and dark polka dot tie — Joel spent most of the show seated in a piano placed on a turntable that allowed him to rotate to face different sides of the room. His excellent band, notably saxophonist Mark Rivera, multi-instrumentalist Crystal Taliefero and guitarist Mike Delguidice, provided plenty of energy.
Fans of Billy Joel the balladeer were well served with “Vienna,” “The Entertainer” and sublime versions of his timeless hits “Piano Man” and “New York State of Mind,” the latter given a moody reading as projections of the city flashed behind him. “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant,” the hybrid ballad about Brenda and Eddie, also moved the room.
Each was a showcase for a voice that seems to have lost none of its power and suppleness. After showing off a bottle of throat spray he purchased after seeing Madonna use it (“I didn’t notice any difference,” he said, with a wry laugh),
Joel’s vocals throughout the evening were clear and forceful, shifting effortlessly through every gear. Joel has always been able to smooth the edges of a lyric to a velvety softness, and that skill remains, too.
Many songs came with the story or humorous aside — “The Longest Time,” his bouncy ode to romance and Christie Brinkley, was punctuated with “… and then we got divorced” — and Joel seemed to end each number with an understated “Thank you.” It felt like he meant it.
The night included a rare performance of the new-wavy “Modern Woman” and he split the buoyant “River of Dreams” in two parts, separated by an extended rendition of the Eagles’ classic “Take It Easy.” Delguidice followed “River of Dreams” with an impressively muscular version of “Nessun dorma,” the iconic solo from Puccini’s opera “Turandot.” The crowd went wild.
Joel seemed to play a couple of songs based on audience response, allowing applause to help him choose “The Downeaster Alexa” over the title track of his 1989 album “Storm Front.” A rock ballad about the plight of Long Island fishermen, “Downeaster” drew big applause, as did his working-man hit “Allentown.”
The audience, of course, were on their feet the instant they heard the opening notes of pop hits such as “My Life,” “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)” and “Only the Good Die Young,” which had many in the audience swaying arm in arm. Leaving the piano to stand out front with a guitar, Joel went to the whip at the end of the evening with a five-song encore of fan-favorite sing-alongs “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” “Uptown Girl,” It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me,” “Big Shot” and “You May Be Right.”