Billy Joel live at the 02 on November 1st

delbertgrady

It's Randy Newman's "Prologue 1915-1923" from the soundtrack of The Natural.
A stunning piece of work.
I've added it to my setlist post on the previous page.

tomboylady

Was at this last night. First time seeing him live and was utterly enthralled. My voice is shot to bits today. Great to hear a few of his more obscure songs, as well as some real crowd favourites. His voice has not changed one bit over the years, brilliant. Would have liked to have heard him sing Saigon but not overly upset that he didn't.

Untouchable Peasant

My favourite Joel songs are: An Innocent Man, The Longest Time, Honesty, Pressure, Say Goodbye to Hollywood, Captain Jack, I Go To Extremes, Leave a Tender Moment Alone, Goodnight Saigon and Piano Man.

Only got one of those and so was disappointed. There were at least seven or eight songs I would have scratched in favour of any of those listed above but I still enjoyed it all the same.

washiskin

I suppose with a back catalogue as big as his, everyone was going to be a bit disappointed but to be perfectly honest, it was an absolute pleasure to see him live & if he'd just come on & done Scenes From An Italian Restaurant & left, I would have been happy.
No expense spared on production & a seriously tight band - the mark of an entertainer who doesn't take the piss out of his audience.

missierex

I bought my mam tickets for her birthday, and accompanied her on Friday night.

Billy Joel was amazing, very impressive indeed, but the crowd were absolute @rseholes!!! We were contantly being shoved around by people going to the bar, and any time a 'quiet' song was being played, or Billy was addressing the crowd, we literally couldn't hear a word. I looked around at one point and everyone in my eye-line were yapping, not one looking at the stage even! They would only stop talking when a popular song like 'Uptown Girl' came on.

Before you perhaps judge me for maybe over-reacting, I've been to hundreds of gigs, and frequently go to festivals, but have NEVER experienced anythig like this before. I was pretty fuious as i'd spent €165 on the two tickets and couldn't hear half the show.

Anyone else notice this??

SparkySpitfire

missierex wrote: »

I bought my mam tickets for her birthday, and accompanied her on Friday night.

Billy Joel was amazing, very impressive indeed, but the crowd were absolute @rseholes!!! We were contantly being shoved around by people going to the bar, and any time a 'quiet' song was being played, or Billy was addressing the crowd, we literally couldn't hear a word. I looked around at one point and everyone in my eye-line were yapping, not one looking at the stage even! They would only stop talking when a popular song like 'Uptown Girl' came on.

Before you perhaps judge me for maybe over-reacting, I've been to hundreds of gigs, and frequently go to festivals, but have NEVER experienced anythig like this before. I was pretty fuious as i'd spent €165 on the two tickets and couldn't hear half the show.

Anyone else notice this??

Since my last concert was Macklemore the crowd was so much better in comparison!

We were kinda near the back but we liked it we could see and we had a bitta space to move.

IF YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE JACK IN THE BOXES GOING TO THE BAR EVERY 5 MINS YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF.

They spilled drinks on me, shoved past me, grunted at me with nary an "excuse me". :rolleyes:

And some of the dickheads there were worse than children. Two fat bitches pushed past us...TO STAND IN FRONT OF US. What is wrong with you people? IF YOU COME LATE, YOU STAND AT THE BACK. You don't push your way towards the front and stand in front of people who've been there longer than you. They were probably too busy stuffing their faces to get there on time. :mad:

[/rant]

marob1969

Have to say that there were a few shouts of 'Billy we love you', or 'Billy you're the best' and also shouts for specific song requests here and there, but I can live with that. But when you are near to the stage, that’s to be expected. People going to get drinks also were a pain. For me they should just close the overpriced bar once the artist comes on stage. However, when it all adds up, we had great night with great memories.

Babooshka

missierex wrote: »

I bought my mam tickets for her birthday, and accompanied her on Friday night.

Billy Joel was amazing, very impressive indeed, but the crowd were absolute @rseholes!!! We were contantly being shoved around by people going to the bar, and any time a 'quiet' song was being played, or Billy was addressing the crowd, we literally couldn't hear a word. I looked around at one point and everyone in my eye-line were yapping, not one looking at the stage even! They would only stop talking when a popular song like 'Uptown Girl' came on.

Before you perhaps judge me for maybe over-reacting, I've been to hundreds of gigs, and frequently go to festivals, but have NEVER experienced anythig like this before. I was pretty fuious as i'd spent €165 on the two tickets and couldn't hear half the show.

Anyone else notice this??

I have loved Billy Joel since I was a teenager and had standing tickets myself. I disagree with you(edit: sorry, I don't mean I disagree with you, I meant more that I didn't experience it the way you did, not dissing your opinion), but maybe we were standing in different spaces though. While I agree that you couldn't hear a thing he said, it wasn't because of an overly noisy crowd, it was because of bad sound engineers not doing their job properly. A few people were merry and having a laugh during some of his more obscure songs, but it's not like a concert at the national concert hall, not everyone has to sit there with their finger on their lip in reverance. I didn't see anyone shouting at loud levels or being disrespectful . I saw some happy people dancing laughing and having a natter and a beer during one or two songs they didn't know...which, after paying that much for tickets, is their right to do. His vocal level was way too low especially when he was talking, and that wasn't the punters faults. I am a singer and have done a lot of auditorium gigs, it was a sound issue, not a crowd issue. Not being able to hear what he was saying made me feel less connected to the artist and not fully able to get my money's worth, and a little disappointed as I had waited to see him for a long time...so in those periods I had a couple of chats with my mates myself, not my fault he couldn't be heard, or anyone's but the sound men. Maybe all the other gigs you were at were gigs where the sound engineers got it right.

horseburger

missierex wrote: »

I bought my mam tickets for her birthday, and accompanied her on Friday night.

Billy Joel was amazing, very impressive indeed, but the crowd were absolute @rseholes!!! We were contantly being shoved around by people going to the bar, and any time a 'quiet' song was being played, or Billy was addressing the crowd, we literally couldn't hear a word. I looked around at one point and everyone in my eye-line were yapping, not one looking at the stage even! They would only stop talking when a popular song like 'Uptown Girl' came on.

Before you perhaps judge me for maybe over-reacting, I've been to hundreds of gigs, and frequently go to festivals, but have NEVER experienced anythig like this before. I was pretty fuious as i'd spent €165 on the two tickets and couldn't hear half the show.

Anyone else notice this??

You aren't over reacting, it happens at most gigs.

At Fleetwood Mac during the last song that Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham played, a nice quiet acoustic piece, called Say Goodbye, some asshole roared and shouted a few times during it from way back, I guess somewhere in the tiered seating.

I was standing, so if I could hear him, it must have been even more distracting for those near him.

What did he (I am guessing it was a man!:)) think he was contributing to the event?:mad:


Luckily, I didn't notice much loud chatter during Billy Joel, most people near where I was standing seemed to be attentive.

But when I went to see Opeth in Vicar St a while back, these two guys near me, to my left, talked loudly the whole way through one song, to the extent that a chap standing in front of them turned around and asked them to stop talking.

When this particular song finished, and Opeth played the next song, one of them obviously recognised it started singing along to it!:mad:

I don't understand why they wouldn't want to concentrate on watching the whole gig, even if there's songs they might not recognise.

I enjoyed Billy Joel and liked the spinning piano!!:) but it would have been nice to hear Goodnight Saigon.

neemish

I was seated in block J, and to be honest was extremely annoyed with people coming and going all the way through. I lost count of the number of times some people went to the bar. It's like if they didn't know a song they had no interest.

Can't understand why there isn't a policy of only moving around between songs. It happens in theatre, jazz, classical. I know it's a different audience but it was ridiculous.


Oh and Billy's vocal mike was WAY too low. Missed alot of what he said :-(

bodhrandude

missierex wrote: »

I bought my mam tickets for her birthday, and accompanied her on Friday night.

Billy Joel was amazing, very impressive indeed, but the crowd were absolute @rseholes!!! We were contantly being shoved around by people going to the bar, and any time a 'quiet' song was being played, or Billy was addressing the crowd, we literally couldn't hear a word. I looked around at one point and everyone in my eye-line were yapping, not one looking at the stage even! They would only stop talking when a popular song like 'Uptown Girl' came on.

Before you perhaps judge me for maybe over-reacting, I've been to hundreds of gigs, and frequently go to festivals, but have NEVER experienced anythig like this before. I was pretty fuious as i'd spent €165 on the two tickets and couldn't hear half the show.

Anyone else notice this??

I felt the same (off topic here) at the Bat For Lashes gig at Electric Picnic last year, half the crowd is yapping while we're straining to hear Laura in the Electric Arena.

ppdub73

That was my third time seeing Billy and I have to say he was bang on form. I was right up the front and had no issues with awkward sods. I had a few of those in the Marquee (right at the front also) when I saw Elton in June but I quickly sorted them out. I totally get people's frustrations about numpty's who spend a shed load of money on a ticket only to decide to go and have their evening meal and lubrication that they've missed at home during the concert. No point trying to explain it to them, coz if they don't get it by now (and some of them are no spring chickens either!!) they never will.

On to the show. A couple of friends of mine from the US (Florida and Arizona) and another couple from Barcelona flew in especially for the show. They thought it was one of the best experiences ever, totally bowled over by the crowd sing along the entire time. Look at the clip of Piano Man on YouTube and you'll see Tommy Byrnes applaud the crowd at the end of it. Just a really good vibe all over. Billy was red hot and showed no signs of any rustiness. It was the first tour show announced and I know from the Billy fans page on Facebook there was a thought that this could possibly be a one off show. So the place was filled with a great deal of die hard's from all over the world. All in all a very enjoyable night!!

Here's my review on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/paul-purcell/billy-joel-live-at-the-o2-dublin-1st-november-2013-my-review/10151926827702114

missierex

neemish wrote: »

I was seated in block J, and to be honest was extremely annoyed with people coming and going all the way through. I lost count of the number of times some people went to the bar. It's like if they didn't know a song they had no interest.

Can't understand why there isn't a policy of only moving around between songs. It happens in theatre, jazz, classical. I know it's a different audience but it was ridiculous.


Oh and Billy's vocal mike was WAY too low. Missed alot of what he said :-(

That may have been the main issue (Billy's mike), but that combined with all the yapping made it impossible to know what was going on!

We moved out of the crowd, right to the back, and though we weren't being pushed around any more, we couldn't hear any of the music properly.

I was so disappointed, my poor mam hadn't been to a gig since Rod Stewart about 40 years ago!!!

HeidiHeidi

I can only chime in to agree with all of the above posters!

It actually crossed my mind halfway through the concert - have we completely lost the capacity to sit still (never mind quietly) for two hours? How pathetic is that? I absolutely agree that it's all to do with being able to bring drinks to your seats, which I think is one of the worst developments at concerts in recent years. Sticky ground from drinks being spilt, ruining coats and bags left down, people up and down to get the bloody drinks, and then up and down to piss it all away :mad:

Although in fairness it was nowhere nearly as bad the other night as it was at Leonard Cohen a couple of years ago - I was incandescent with fury by the end of that one! It borderline ruined it for me.

Billy was loud and lively enough to cover the worst of it - but yes, up in the seated rows (I was in Block P) the coming and going never stopped. Thankfully my row behaved themselves - at Leonard Cohen we were up and down like jack-in-the-boxes the whole night :mad:

delbertgrady

bodhrandude wrote: »

I felt the same (off topic here) at the Bat For Lashes gig at Electric Picnic last year, half the crowd is yapping while we're straining to hear Laura in the Electric Arena.

Just to clarify, that's Natasha's song, Laura, not Billy's song of the same name.
Both are phenomenal, anyway.

Zardoz

I was just looking at a video of Uptown Girl at the O2 and it would seem to indicate that Billy mimed the song and it was in fact sung by a backing singer who he acknowledges at the end of the song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNhTdhFnOT4

I know he doesnt like singing the song as it wrecks his voice so maybe he took a little liberty .;)

washiskin

It drove me mad on Friday why tf pay a fortune for a ticket & then yap all the way through the gig? I was on the ground floor & the amount of thirsty baxtards wandering around like lost kids beat out all.

A few years ago I lost the rag with a pair of weak bladdered herberts in the Olympia at a sit-down gig - every second or third song it was either the jax or the bar. Told them to f-off out the other end of the feckin row that I wasn't getting up for them again. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

horseburger

Zardoz wrote: »

I was just looking at a video of Uptown Girl at the O2 and it would seem to indicate that Billy mimed the song and it was in fact sung by a backing singer who he acknowledges at the end of the song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNhTdhFnOT4

I know he doesnt like singing the song as it wrecks his voice so maybe he took a little liberty .;)

I wouldn't imagine he was miming, I'd say he was singing and credits the additional singing of the guitarist.

I would say Billy Joel was being gracious in crediting the vocal assistance here, in the way he light heartedly mentioned attempting to hit high notes and singing like Frankie Valli.

I would say that if any singer, in a live concert, was really miming, and were trying to hide it, they wouldn't acknowledge the additional vocals.

vicwatson

bodhrandude wrote: »

I felt the same (off topic here) at the Bat For Lashes gig at Electric Picnic last year, half the crowd is yapping while we're straining to hear Laura in the Electric Arena.

As was bell x1 in Wexford last Sat night - fookin' gimps. Stay at home if you don't wanna hear the live music, or go to a pub, but stay away from the concert, yap yap yapping all the way through. Jesussss :mad::mad::mad::mad:

horseburger

vicwatson wrote: »

As was bell x1 in Wexford last Sat night - fookin' gimps. Stay at home if you don't wanna hear the live music, or go to a pub, but stay away from the concert, yap yap yapping all the way through. Jesussss :mad::mad::mad::mad:

Same again for the two support singers for Mark Lanegan earlier tonight, Tuesday 5th November, in the Sugar Club, Duke Garwood and Lyenn,

People talking loudly throughout both supports.