BY RICK MASSIMO
Journal Pop Music Writer
FOXBORO - The compressed format of the Elton John/Billy Joel Face2Face Tour that rolled into Gillette Stadium Saturday night, with two platinum-selling piano rockers sharing a three-hour show each could easily fill themselves, meant that they both stuck mainly to the hits, and the best known ones at that. But 15 years and a day after they last played Foxboro, and in front of a sellout crowd of 53,096, the two sexagenarian legends created some variety by collaborating on renditions of each other's material, putting old lyrics in new voices.
The show began with John and Joel literally face to face at two pianos, doing "Your Song" and "Just the Way You Are," while sharing the lead vocal duties on each. Their respective bands came on to escort the pair of pianists through John's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" and Joel's "It's My Life" before John and his band took over for about an hour.
They charged hard out of the box with the suite "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" and "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting," both owing at least as much to Davey Johnstone's guitar as John's piano for their drive.
It got ballad-heavy after that, but John threw in the less-known "Madman Across the Water" as well as some curveballs in his renditions of familiar songs, such as Johnstone's slide guitar on "Tiny Dancer" and the double-time coda on "Levon."
Several of the songs had extended codas, in fact, and mostly they were interesting extrapolations, such as John's quote from "The Girl From Ipanema" on "Madman Across the Water," and even though the drawn-out ending of "Rocket Man" was uninspired, its heart was in the right place
John backed off from the falsettos (picked up by the rest of the band), but otherwise was in fine vocal form, with plenty of husk and power. And even on the ballads, the rock-solid rhythm section of bassist Bob Birch and longtime drummer Nigel Olsson kept things moving and interesting. Birch's bouncy octaves on "Tiny Dancer" and syncopations on "Philadelphia Freedom" were highlights; even "Crocodile Rock," one of John's flattest singles, grooved in performance.
So the bar was set high for Joel, and he came out in similar form to John, tearing into a suite "Prelude/Angry Young Man," though slowing it down mearly immediately with "Movin' Out."
Joel was more animated on stage, hollering at the audience (often profanely) and making frequent, earnest use of a fly-swatter, but musically he and his band mostly stayed within the lines, stepping out for the Steely Dan-style "Zanzibar."
Joel's band was larger and more clangorous than John's, and sometimes that led to a lack of distinction among the instruments, but the clave-inspired "Don't Ask Me Why" and the suite "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" stood out.
The light-hearted bounce of "In the Middle of the Night" was trampled on by the stadium-rock volume and dynamics, but the verse of "Dirty Water" he threw in the middle was a nice try. The swinging "Only the Good Die Young," with which Joel closed his own band's set, had a good rollick to it.
The two pianists returned to the stage for the encore, this time with both bands in tow, and once again shared vocal duties on "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues," "Uptown Girl," "The Bitch Is Back" (which began with both John and Joel standing on their pianos), "You May Be Right" and "Bennie and the Jets" (with extended traded piano solos). Then they chased their bands off for two-piano versions of "Candle In the Wind" and, perhaps obviously, "Piano Man."
rmassimo@projo.com / (401) 277-7206
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I was at the show on the field and love these two artists greatly... Two things to keep in mind;
"It's My Life" is a Bon Jovi song, "My Life" is Billy's. "In the Middle of the Night" is a lyric from the Title song "River of Dreams". I noticed Projo made the same lyrical hiccup last year for the mohegan sun concert. Maybe next time. Otherwise, hope you enjoyed the show Mr. Massimo!
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My family and I totally enjoyed this show. We were surprised at what great voices both of these musicians still had. Just to clarify, they played for 20 minutes together to start, Elton John played for 1 hr 15 mins, Billy Joel played for 1 hour, and then they finished with 30 minutes together - DEFINITELY GOT OUR MONIES WORTH.
I cannot believe you gave the Green Day concert a raving review and then put that you thought Billy Joel used profanity - did you get your reviews mixed up???
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Hi Mary,
I'm not sure what you mean here. My best guess is that you think I brought up Billy Joel's profanity (of which there definitely was plenty) as a negative criticism of his performance, which it wasn't. Or that the amount of profanity in a show has an effect on whether I like it, which it doesn't.
Let me know whether I'm missing your point here.
Rick
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This concert was great. Contrary to what you wrote, I thought it was great when Billy Joel added a verse of "dirty water" into "River of Dreams". Everybody in the crowd loved it. I also thought it was great the way Billy Joel interacted with the crowd.
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