Evan Agostini / Invision / AP File (2018)
Musician Billy Joel performs July 18, 2018, during his 100th lifetime performance at Madison Square Garden in New York. Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022, the “Piano Man” performed his first-ever show at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium.
Wednesday, March 2, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Three songs into his set Saturday night before a full house at Allegiant Stadium, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Billy Joel performed “The Entertainer,” a cut from his 1974 album “Streetlife Serenade.”
In the song’s first verse Joel proclaims, “Today I am your champion / I may have won your hearts / But I know the game, you’ll forget my name / And I won’t be here in another year / If I don’t stay on the charts …”
Turns out Joel wasn’t exactly prescient when he penned “The Entertainer,” admitting to the audience after the song that he hadn’t had a hit on the music charts “for 25 years.”
It didn’t matter to those who were packed into the stadium for the nearly two-and-a-half hour concert. They had come to hear the songs from the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s that Joel made famous — and they weren’t disappointed.
Joel, 72, who continues to maintain a healthy touring schedule, was making his first appearance in Las Vegas since 2016 and, of course, his first visit to Allegiant Stadium.
Setlist
• “Moving Out”
• “Pressure”
• “The Entertainer”
• “Vienna”
• “Don’t Ask Me Why”
• “Zanzibar”
• “Allentown”
• “Just the Way You Are”
• “Say Goodbye to Hollywood”
• “The Longest Time”
• “New York State of Mind”
• “The Downeaster ‘Alexa’”
• “She’s Always a Woman”
• “My Life” / “Symphony No. 9” (Ode to Joy) (Ludwig van Beethoven, interlude)
• “Only the Good Die Young”
• “A Whiter Shade of Pale” (Procol Harum cover)
• “Sometimes a Fantasy”
• “The River of Dreams” / “Tush”(ZZ Top, interlude)
• “Nessun Dorma” (Giacomo Puccini cover; Mike DelGuidice vocals)
• “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”
• “Piano Man”
Encore:
• “We Didn’t Start the Fire”
• “Uptown Girl”
• “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me”
• “Big Shot”
• “You May Be Right” / “Rock and Roll” (Led Zeppelin, interlude)
“This is a nice venue,” he said, noting he was “an Oakland Raiders fan … and now I like the Las Vegas Raiders.”
Throughout the show, Joel — don’t call him an artist … “An artist is a guy with a beret who sits in a park and paints pictures, and he starves in a garret somewhere,” he once told Rolling Stone — introduced a number of his songs with the caveat that “this wasn’t a hit either.” Then he would launch into a familiar melody, and the house would go wild, happily singing along on every chorus.
Throughout the evening, Joel joked with those attending about everything from his age to his marriages to his songwriting.
Shortly after he took the stage, he deadpanned that concertgoers might be talking among themselves, asking, “What the hell happened to him?”
His answer? “I got older.”
Wearing a blue jacket, black shirt and black printed tie, Joel sat for most of the concert at center stage behind his piano on a platform that revolved and allowed him to face the different sides of the stadium. He occasionally got up to sing, shuffling while swaying or twirling a microphone stand. Age hasn’t set in on his voice, which was strong throughout his set and showed off his ability to still hit a full range of notes.
In a night of memory-invoking songs, Joel’s harmonizing on “The Longest Time” and “Uptown Girl” were among the highlights. “Allentown,” his 1982 track paying homage to unemployed steelworkers and the working class at-large, still strikes a chord 40 years after it was written. “Just the Way You Are” and “She’s Always a Woman” featured live shots on video boards above the stage of women in the audience standing, dancing and singing along.
On the heels of “Only the Good Die Young,” the concert turned somber with Joel performing a cover of “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” paying respects to “my good friend, Gary Booker,” Procol Harum’s founder and lead singer, who died a week earlier at age 76.
Later in the show, Joel turned the mic over to his guitarist and vocalist Mike DelGuidice, who brought the house down with an operatic performance of “Nessun Doram,” from Giacomo Puccini’s “Turandot.”
Joel closed out the regular setlist by strapping on a harmonica and performing his biggest — and first — hit, “Piano Man.” The opening keys brought the stadium to its collective feet, and by the time the song’s final chorus came around, Joel stopped singing and let the crowd take over.
A five-song encore topped off by “Big Shot,” punctuated by an interlude featuring Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll,” (It’s been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time …”) ended the night and sent the throngs home fully entertained.
