Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel @ Hammerstein Ballroom (Not a Review)

Slowly but surely we'll all get a sense of what it was like inside the Hammerstein last night with The Boss, Billy, John Legend, and India Arie.

Caroline Kennedy introduces the guys

Glory Days (snippet)


New York State of Mind

Spirit in the Night

Allentown

Born To Run

People Get Ready (with Obama arriving at the end)

Hopefully more to come...

Billy Joel...Bruce Springsteeen....Together....for Barack

Hammerstein Ballroom Thursday 10/16

The cheap tix were $500, those are all gone. All that's left are the big wigs who can snag the $2500 seats, and the mega donors who can fork over $10,000 which must mean the Piano Man and the Boss play on your lap...presumably at the same time.

As the Times points out, Billy and Bruce played together once before, doing "Glory Days" with Rhymin' Simon for a charity show at MSG in 1987.

Making The Case For Billy

Billy Joel – Madison Square Garden – New York, NY – January 26, 2006

This may seem a surprising show considering the concert reviews of the last half a decade but make no mistake – Mr. Joel is what radio-friendly pop music should have always been about. His hooks have almost always been solid without being saccharine. And live wise, he remains the embodiment of New York in popular music. He inherited the mantle of Tin Pan Alley serenader in the guise of the Beatles. He’s Springsteen without the musical bombardment. He’s Elton John without the flamboyancy. Most importantly, he’s Billy. He’s his own musical marker on American pop culture. He still has guts. Rather than play a slue of radio hits, he mixes his live show with album tracks like “Vienna”, “Zanzibar”, “Laura”, and “Sometimes A Fantasy”. And I dare anyone who hears 25,000 people sing “Piano Man” in perfect unison without a single error or mistake to not feel a chill, even if you’ve heard the song 100 times too many. Don’t take shit from anybody.

A+