I've seen God
Gregg and I went to see Billy Joel in concert last night at Staples Center. Needless to say, he FUCKING ROCKED! I’ve been to every Billy Joel concert in LA (okay, I missed one because of work which I don’t even talk about) in the last 25 years. Anyone who knows me, knows that I refer to him as God.He was SO awesome. Started off with “Angry Young Man” and ended with, of course, “Piano Man”. There’s nothing more awesome than hearing 20,000 people singing “Sing us a song, you’re the Piano Man/Sing us a song tonight/’Cause we’re all in the mood for a melody/And you’ve got us singing alright.” He was really on, every song sounded great, he was definitely full of energy, sang all the classics old and new. He sang all my immediate favorites including “Angry Young Man”, “I Go To Extremes”, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” “Only The Good Die Young” and “Scenes from Italian Restaurant” , just to name a few.
I will admit I had my cry during “Goodnight Saigon”. If you know the lyrics, you know that it was written about the Vietnam War. And if you’ve seen Billy Joel in concert before, you know that he has vets standing on the stage during the chorus. It’s always moving. Well, last night he had 6 soldiers (1 was a woman) who clearly are troops who have been Iraq. The entire crowd stood on their feet giving them a huge ovation in the middle of the song and at the end as well. It was so emotional. I don’t consider myself overly patriotic and I certainly don’t support why the country is in this war, but I definitely support the troops and all the sacrifices they’re making for our country. I had tears in my eyes and it was a very special moment.
Welcome to concerts in the 21st century. For those of you old enough to go to concerts when smoking was still legal in California, you remember when everyone would use their lighters to encourage the performer. Now, it’s cell phones. Before the encore, the crowd was a sea of glowing window screens. People were snapping photos from their cameras, I’m sure calling people to hear the song and I saw lots of digital cameras snapping away, including me. Here are two shots of “God” from the stage and on the screen.
posted by Juls @ 2:38 PM
2 Comments:
AWESOME..I loved the 2 concerts of him I've seen...wish I could have been there, too!
Lisa
I would so love to see him live. Glass Houses was one of the first vinyl albums I owned...I played it over and over and still know all the words to all the songs. I love him!!!
Scenes from and Italian Resturant was one of my favorie songs in high school. I had a good friend Brenda - who I started calling Brender (in my best Billy Joel accent) - and tried to hook her up with another friend Eddie....I so wanted to have our own "Brender and Eddie" but she didn't go for it.
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