Sing Us A Song, Piano Man!

Tonight was the much-anticipated Billy Joel concert in Greenville, and the evening was not short on drama, both onstage and off. First - the delight of the concert! The Piano Man was in top form, and his voice was amazing. He started out making jokes about having to tour now, to get money to pay for his car insurance (referencing his recent DWI arrest). He also did not have an opening act. After his first tune, Angry Young Man, he said, "Hello, I'm Billy's Dad, and I'm the opening act." The crowd went wild because, admittedly, he does look like "Billy's Dad," rather than the Piano Man of the 70s and 80s. The music was wonderful - Billy is a true songwriter. Right at the middle of the concert, he did my favorite tune, "New York State of Mind," which I have been playing and singing myself for at least 20 years. Of course, the night was not complete until he donned his silver harmonica, and sang his signature tune. The irony, of course, is that he doesn't end up singing the refrain of Piano Man -- the audience does. We screamed for him to come back to the stage, until our vocal chords were stretched to the limit, and held up our cell phones, which lit up the arena as lighters once did in the 60s and 70s. But, when he finally emerged for the encore, we ended up singing the song ourselves! That must be an amazing feeling for a songwriter, to hear your words being sung by a captive arena audience, all in unison. There were so many highlights of the evening, including the beautiful sax of Mark Riviera, who has been with Billy since the flood. Billy took to the stage with the energy, enthusiasm and vigor of a much younger man.

The drama of which I spoke was that Gary realized, right before we are to get in the car and drive downtown, that he had likely thrown our tickets away. Maddie, unfortunately, was playing in the drawer where we kept them, and Gary recalled throwing away a small gray box several weeks ago, that was on the living room floor. Luckily, in today's world of Ticketmaster, we got replacement tickets, which were waiting for us at the box office.

Seeing Billy Joel was the perfect finish to a great day - which served as the perfect celebration for the other big event of the day -- Gary showed houses all day to his first real prospects. He said that he was meant to do real estate, and I couldn't agree more. I guess we could all use a day filled with euphoria every now and again.


(Can you see Billy? He's the bald one in the middle of the stage!)