I first became aware of Billy Joel after the release of Glass Houses in 1980. But I became a fan three years later in 1983 when my friend’s dad picked us up from school in his Camaro while blasting the An Innocent Man album on his stereo. I was mesmerized by the doo-wop style: it was like nothing I’d ever heard before, and I was sold.
Ten years later, December 3, 1993, I went to see Billy in concert for the River of Dreams tour. My friend (and future wife) and I were poor students, so we had purchased nosebleed tickets. But as we entered Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, I was filled with anticipation, anxious to see a pop icon who had been featured on my playlists for a decade. Then some guy walked up to us and asked to see our tickets. After I showed him our seats, he held out tickets for the second row centre and offered to swap. Undaunted by my look of bewilderment and skepticism, he then whipped out his roadie pass and explained that Billy had a practice of reserving the front two rows of his concerts for real fans who couldn’t afford better seats. Needless to say, that was a night to remember, capped off by the very roadie who had given us the tickets coming on stage to join in on the booming chorus for “Goodnight Saigon.”
A few days ago, Billy Joel released a video for his new single, “Turn the Lights Back On.” The video features Joel playing at four different stages of his life, the Piano Man era (1973), the Glass Houses era (1980), the Storm Front era (1989), and today. Since I’ve been listening to Billy’s songs for forty-one years, watching this video was akin to reflecting on my own life, both the tragic brevity and noble gift of it all.
