BILLY JOEL in concert at the Delta Center, April 10; one performance only.Thank goodness for rotating platforms.
Billy Joel's sold-out concert at the Delta Center Saturday night was a success because no matter where you sat, there was no way you could miss the Piano Man.
All of his keyboards, including the piano, rotated.
Joel, who turns 50 this year, played a two-hour show consisting of his hits. It was classic Joel.
The band -- keyboardist Dave Rosenthal, bassist David Santos, drummer Liberty DeVito, multi-instrumentalist Chrystal Ty Ferrell, vocalist Michael Miller and guitarist Tommy Burns -- backed the personable Joel with skin-tight precision with contagious energy.
Joel cranked out such hits as "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" from "52nd Street" and "Allentown" from the album "Nylon Curtain."
The audience, mixed of course, cheered every note and hung on every rendition of the tunes.
Obscure tunes such as "Vienna" from "The Stranger" and "Innoscent Man" from the album of the same name, also had fans singing and dancing in the aisles.
But the show wasn't just music. There was a bucketload of humor.
"I feel like Julio (Iglesias)," Joel said in a Latin accent during the intro to "Innoscent Man."
He also made fun of his size as he spoke of his dates with model Elle McPherson. "She was between ex-wife number 1 and ex-wife number 2."
Other hits the man played included the crowd-pleasing "My Life," "Ballad of Billy the Kid," "Goodnight My Angel" and "River of Dreams."
Just before "We Didn't Start the Fire," the band cranked out excerpts from Frank Sinatra's "Lady's a Tramp," Elvis' "Don't Be Cruel," the Beatles' "Hard Day's Night," Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze," Led Zeppelin's "Good Times Bad Times" and the Police's "Roxanne."
"That brings us up to 1989," Joel said as the band began "We Didn't Start the Fire."
Capping the concert was the rambunctious "Still Rock and Roll to Me" and "You May Be Right," during which Joel jumped upon his black Kurzweil grand piano.
For the encore, the band went into "Only the Good Die Young" and came back for a reverent version of "Piano Man."
It is rumored this will be Joel's last tour. If it is, the man went out in a blaze of glory.