The sign by the Pyramid of the Sun near Mexico City reads: "Sound and Light Show, 8 p.m."
Sorry. Not even close.The sign's right, the place is wrong. The sound and light show was thousands of miles north at Salt Lake's Delta Center Wednesday night.
For an inner-city kid, Billy Joel knows style - like those Mafia dons who dress to the nines. For instance, the decor Wednesday was basic black - black suit, black piano, black towel, black floor. But that was only until the music and lights kicked in. From then on, Joel was a one-man rainbow coalition.
At 44, Billy Joel now does rock 'n' roll as well as anyone alive. Whether he's at the piano coaxing a kind of Air Supply suppleness from his voice, or dressed in shades at the mike, being the blues brother that Dan Aykroyd dreams of being, the 30-year veteran gets better and better.
This tour is billed as the "River of Dreams" tour - a chance to hype Joel's new album. But it really was "The Reunion Tour," with Old Billy Joel meeting up with New Billy Joel.
Easing into the pool with a gentle rendition of "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)" - old bones take a minute to heat up - Joel was quickly on his way, ping-ponging from cuts on the new CDto old chestnuts from the '70s. The laser lights and piano chords seemed to come from everywhere: "Pressure" (set off by an Excedrin headache light show), "Angry Young Man," "Allentown," "Shades of Gray."
Amid the barrage, the singer took a few moments every now and then to catch his breath (these are the Rockies), filling time with chords from "Ode to Joy" and "Angels We Have Heard on High" or pattering with the crowd. He recalled the Terrace Ballroom - and cursed it. He put down a wise mouth in the back of the hall and did a rambling little monologue about being 44.
"It ain't bad," he said. "And you're saying, `sure you say 44 ain't bad. You're married to Christie Brinkley.' "
Like most good rock shows, the tempo and energy picked up as the night wore on. Standing ovations greeted "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "Goodbye Saigon" (complete with tracer lights, bomb flashes and a whirling helicopter in the sound system).
Joel's backup band, led by long-time buddy Liberty DeVitto on drums, has added a stunner in Crystal Taliefero, who played guitar, woodwinds, drums and sang some incredible harmonies. (She honed her style with Bruce Springsteen.)
The stage work was impressive. Pianos (yes, plural) rose from nowhere, drum sets came and went. Joel - always the entertainer - twirled the mike stand like a baton and prowled from synthesizer to synthesizer like some antsy tom cat.
He was clapped back for two encores. The second, "Piano Man," was the song that shot him into the limelight. And Wednesday, it was the song that kept him there the longest. The audience sang it, hummed it, cheered it. After all the albums and concerts, the tune remains Billy Joel's signature piece.
"We're all in the mood for a melody. You got us feeling all right."
In the end, Joel proved once again he goes beyond "musician." He's the showman. He's John Irving's bear on a bike - on display. The stage is his sideshow. And when Joel stalks around, cuts loose in New Yawkese, spins the piano stool - he's the dancing bear for an entire generation.
And like all dancing bears, he breaks your heart.