Friday, July 18, 2008

THE ANTI BILLY JOEL.

I got an email this morning asking me to please post a review and photos of the Billy Joel show.

I realize some of you will find this uproariously funny already. You are the people who get the song references in my post headlines, and who managed to turn a Mets blog into a Pearl Jam blog a few weeks ago. Some other people will have realized that the “grrl” part of MetsGrrl probably signifies that I’m not a big fan of the middle-of-the-road, AOR kind of tunes.

I’m sorry. I hate Billy Joel - or at least that’s what I would have said as a teenager. As a reasoned adult who isn’t getting into a fight on Metro North over the fact that I’m wearing a Clash t-shirt, I will say that I greatly respect Billy Joel, think he has added to the culture, and that there are some songs of his I actively enjoy. But I’m not a fan, and am not going to the show. I have seen my concerts at Shea, and I am fine with that. 

But on the subject of “Concerts I Have Seen At Shea Stadium” I did think that perhaps since it was the weekend, I could justify posting something about my concert history at Shea Stadium.

1. The Who, the Clash, David Johansen, 10/12 + 10/13/82: The first night I sat somewhere in the mezzanine (probably not that far from where I sit now), the second night I watched the show from backstage, which were bleachers behind the stage. How did I get backstage? It had to do with multiple shows, a birthday cake for John Entwistle, and being in the right place at the right time. I almost promptly got myself thrown out when I heard that David Bowie was in the Clash’s dressing room [which, based on what I know about Shea now, had to be the visitor’s clubhouse] and tried sneaking down a passageway to get there. I took this photo of Townshend, probably the best photograph I have ever taken, in the bowels of Shea, wherever the Who’s dressing room was located. Yes, I realize I am lucky.
2. R.E.M., Joan Jett, the Police, 8/18/83:  Please understand that the Police part of this bill was entirely incidental. We completely and totally bought these tickets so we could see and support R.E.M.  Unfortunately, it didn’t dawn on any of us that they were only going to play FIVE SONGS, nor did it dawn on us that 99.999% of the audience were going to be boneheaded Police fans of the type that thinks going to a stadium show is fun, because you can drink beer, light of firecrackers in the concourse, and yell unintelligible things at girls designed to get them to get them to talk to you. We knew more about the Police than they did, and I honestly don’t think any of my group of girlfriends cared one hoot about the Police in any serious fashion. We managed to get within spitting distance of the stage…and then regretted that move, because we were surrounded by bozos, and it being August, it was hot. At one point it rained. I particularly like this account of the show which offers, “the rain got more applause than the band did.”  We got on a train and repeated the experience in Philadelphia (at the old RFK Stadium) the very next day. It was just as hot and miserable, and there were even more boneheads (it was Philly, after all) although we did get closer to the stage.
3. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, 10/04/03: I wasn’t going to this show. Oh no. I came out from Seattle for the last three Giants Stadium shows that August, which were supposed to be the “last area shows!” Of course I knew about a month before those shows even started (through the grapevine) that Shea was happening, and capitulated in the end. I cashed in some frequent flier miles and came out for the last of the three shows. I sat on the field, somewhere between first and second base, and walked in through the visitor’s bullpen and out through the Mets bullpen. Of course, at the time I did all of this, it had absolutely zero meaning to me - unlike TBF, for whom this was as close to nirvana as it got. It rained that night. I danced in the aisle (but not all night, alas) to “Quarter to Three”. Bob f’ing DYLAN showed up for the encore. Al Leiter made an appearance onstage (I am reliably informed that was the previous night. Oh well) and later claimed that Bruce wasn’t a Yankees fan, that he was a Mets fan. I wrote about it here.

I think I have the whole “concert at Shea” experience covered.

TBF is going to play chicken with the scalpers tonight, as part of his goal to see everyone who has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and I wish him every success at that endeavor. While we have many great similarities in our musical tastes, there are points at which they could not be more divergent. Otis Redding? We’re good. Billy Joel? Not so much.