Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
In the self-styled Theatre of Dreams, it is perhaps fitting that one American music legend can turn up to Old Trafford football ground, and with great artistic tongue in cheek, play to the local crowd’s hearts by performing the opening segments to the local anthem of the Stretford End faithful before hitting home with a set list that won’t be heard anywhere else in the country this year.
Almost two years on since Billy Joel’s last visit to the U.K., and in the shadow of another iconic football venue, arguably one of the greatest entertainers and popular song-writers of his generation, if not of the last 100 years, tore up the idea of the pre-conceived serious evening, threw out the rule book for a large scale arena concert and proceeded to give the Manchester crowd a night of Brooklyn humour, of magnificent songs, a slight edge of wonderful sarcasm and an insight into a man to whom has been a rock in a sea of often turbulent times.
In amongst the official Manchester United regalia that dominated the corner of the eye, the large screens and the close-up views for those fortunate enough to look up and stare with wonder into the directness and sincerity of the man on stage, one thing stood out above all else; that this a man able to dominate a stage in a way that few others have been able to do, especially when you spend most of the gig looking beyond the realms of an outstretched, but regal piano.
The strains of Glory, Glory, Man Utd. soon died down, the memory perhaps of the grandeur and swagger that has diminished in recent years in the club itself, but on stage, the sense of the magnificence was about to be released. The feeling of awe, of what Wembley and Madison Square Gardens can do, so can a North of England crowd enjoy, perhaps with more gusto in their hearts on the evidence of a sold-out crowd having braved the slight drop in the summer temperature during the day and the typical downpour of rain that threatens to bring play to a standstill just a mile up the road during the cricket season.
Songs such as My Life, Pressure, The Entertainer, the superb The Longest Time, Zanzibar, the beautiful New York State of Mind, Movinâ’ Out (Anthony’s Song), covers of The Rolling Stones’ Ruby Tuesday, Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love and the despair and anger of Allentown and the upbeat majesty of The River of Dreams contributed greatly to one of the finest gigs to be held in the stadium and one that stood easily alongside the return of Genesis in 2007.
A night in which the music was king, in which a man from Brooklyn took the exalted, the fan and the passionate on a journey that arguably surpassed anything seen this particular side of Manchester for quite some time and in which the statue of Best, Law and Charlton outside the ground, would have looked proudly upon.
Ian D. Hall