Billy Joel: Live at Yankee Stadium

Billy Joel is a legendary singer-songwriter and pianist. Since the release his 1973 hit, 'Piano Man', Billy Joel has become the USA's sixth best-selling recording ever. He is currently performing monthly shows at New York's Madison Square Gardens. These sell-out shows are grand affairs.

As expected, each gig is a sell-out. Each month the crowd gathers, bursting with anticipation. As Billy Joel takes to the piano, a deafening roar of yells, whoops and claps erupts. Despite undertaking a musical residency, Billy is careful to avoid repetition. The set list changes each month and the songwriter freely and spontaneously speaks to the audience between numbers.

April's set opened with 'Miami 2017.' Always a showman, Billy began with a true crowd-pleaser. This track showcased the singer's powerful and near-faultless vocals, setting the scene for the rest of the evening. This month's crafted set list demonstrated Billy's intricate understanding of what makes a good a show. The performer guided his audience through a mixture of old classics, new compositions and inventive covers. Indeed, reflecting on his long career and progressing years, Billy gave an apt rendition of The Beatles' 'When I'm Sixty-Four.' The concert finished on a high. The whole crowd exuberantly sang along to 'Only the Good Die Young' and were treated to Mark Rivera's ever-brilliant sax playing.

Billy Joel seems incapable of putting on anything but a stunning concert. He is a master of the form, and for nearly 30 years he consistently has sold out any venue he has chosen to play. Still, it was a remarkable feat to sell out Yankee Stadium, not once, but twice. A native New Yorker (and avid baseball fan), Joel was the first pop/rock performer allowed to play "The House That Ruth Built," and on the first two nights of summer in 1991, he brought the house down.

"Billy Joel: Live at Yankee Stadium" arguably is the singer/songwriter's finest concert video. The cinematography and editing are impressive, giving the feel at times of a theatrical release rather than a television special. Skillful editing effectively captures the interplay among Joel, his band, and the enthusiastic fans who crowd the tiered stage. The sound is fine on VHS and promises to be superb on a new DVD edition (October 2000), digitally mastered in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and PCM Stereo.

But, as always, the power of a Billy Joel concert is in the music, and The Piano Man takes the field in Yankee Stadium as a true triple threat: songwriter, singer, and musician. It's difficult not to be a bit disappointed knowing that the 85-minute video represents little more than half the actual concert. But while most fans are likely to have at least two or three favorite songs that didn't make the cut, the 12-song play list is solid, with a half-dozen Billy Joel classics logically chosen from a very lengthy list.

A stop on the "Storm Front" tour, the concert opens with two numbers from that album -- the title song, followed by a rousing rendition of one of the album's best, "I Go to Extremes." The first "classic" on the video is a perennial crowd favorite, "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant," after which Joel trades the piano for an accordian to perform another "Storm Front" cut, "The Downeaster Alexa," accompanied by a haunting violin.

An energetic rendition of "Pressure" is followed by a hometown crowd-pleaser, "New York State of Mind," and a new song that would become a classic in its own right: "We Didn't Start the Fire." Joel closes the main part of the show on the lower tier of the stage with a blues harmonica and "That's Not Her Style."

Joel opens the encore with another New York special, an apocalyptic 1976 number he rarely plays in concert anymore, "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)." He follows with "A Matter of Trust" and the finale, "Piano Man," which has evolved into the audience's tribute to Joel. He doesn't even bother to try singing the chorus anymore. The audience takes care of that.

"Live at Yankee Stadium" is an important concert video. Since "Storm Front," Joel has released only one album of original music, "River of Dreams," and no subsequent concert video has matched the energy of that captured in Yankee Stadium. Given Joel's stated plans to eliminate lengthy tours and to limit concerts, it's unlikely we'll see another video of this quality. It's very good work, and it has a place in the collection of any Billy Joel fan.

I like Billy Joel. Especially his early stuff. That's how long I've been listening. But this footage just lacked energy for me.

I'm watching on a PBS broadcast. Relatively uncompressed compared to most broadcast channels. Other concerts look and sound great on this and other channels .And yet, these songs have no "punch" to them, the sound is muffled and not as hot or bright as it should be. And all of the video is soft, dark and choppy like it has a very slow bitrate. I could probably say more about the technical shortcomings, but that doesn't get to the point.

This was boring. Find something else to watch.