Billy Joel says he now looks like his dad, but he sings as well as Harry Styles
At 74, the Jewish musician makes light work of entertaining 65,000 people in Hyde Park
Brigit Grant is the Jewish News Supplements Editor
“Hello dad” said Billy Joel looking up at his own face filling the 900 square metre LED screen on Hyde Park’s main stage. “I never wanted to look like my dad,” he added, and the 65,000 strong crowd laughed supportively at the inevitability of us all eventually resembling our parents.
Now 74, The Piano Man, born of German Jewish parents, definitely looks older with his bald pate, but while the dark curls have disappeared his talent remains, fact it is ten fold. Of course he’s always been good – arguably one of the finest singer/songwriters – but he hasn’t released a new studio album for over 20 years, so his relevance precedes Spotify. Thankfully this is not true for my 16-year-old daughter or for the thousands who made up the multi-generational audience at British Summer Time. Only a few weeks ago our girl was at Wembley swooning over Harry Styles, yet here she was singing along to ‘Movin Out’ verbatim.
It was the same with every song during the 2.5 hour set that carried the crowd through the afternoon heat to the darkness of evening and beyond, as everyone was singing Joel classics at the exit gates.
“I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad news”said Joel at the start of his epic set at a rotating piano. “The bad news is we don’t have anything new to play. The good news is you don’t have to hear anything new.” The relief was palpable. In an instant Joel had lifted the burden of making his fans smile through ‘new stuff’ (a penchant of famous musicians) and instead promised a roster that would include ‘Scenes from an Italian Restaurant Vienna, Zanzibar and My Life.
These songs are part of our lives, and the lyrics conjuring up images of late twentieth century Americana are the soundtrack of the seventies and eighties for Brits too, as (if you are my age) providing the soundtrack to our teenage years and into our twenties.
The musicians accompanying this journey on stage are worthy of their own individual reviews, but trumpeter Carl Fischer, saxophonist Mark Rivera and Mike Delgudice on guitar and vocals are note worthy, as is Crystal Taliefero who delivered a blistering River Deep tribute to the late Tina Turner. So respectful is Joel, he also performed Hard Day’s Night as a birthday toast to Ringo Starr who turned 83 this week and did a fine impression of Mick Jagger for a few minutes, just because he could.
Apologising in advance for not hitting the high notes in Innocent Man, he did so as effortlessly as…well, Harry Styles. “Mummy, I love him” gushed our 16-year-old as she joined in on We Didn’t Start the Fire with 65,000 others. I’ve loved him for years and more so, when in 2017 at a Madison Square Garden concert, he wore a yellow Star of David on his jacket in protest against the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. His father William was born and raised in Nuremberg, and though his grandparents left Germany for America, the large extended family were murdered by the Nazis. As Joel told The Sunday Times, “My father enlisted in the US army and ended up attacking Nuremberg, his home town. He was shooting at his old school friends. This is all stuff I found out after Dad left, but when I heard his story, I began to understand.”
Joel blamed his parents’ separation on his father’s painful history, so his show of solidarity was significant. But BST Hyde Park was all about having a good time and he certainly gave us that. Looking like his dad hasn’t hampered Billy Joel at all. Somewhere the late Howard Joel is schlepping nachas.
Watch Billy Joel at BST https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys0wgMcQExk
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