Billy Joel

at The Boston Garden

September 14

at The Worcester Centrum

November 8

When Billy Joel walked onto the stage of the Boston Garden to the accompaniment of dramatic musical fanfare, his audience knew a spectacle was in store for them. After all, not only was the entire concert to be filmed as part of a PBS concert series, but the video for Joel's latest single, "All About Soul," would be shot during his performance.

What the crowd perhaps did not expect was that Joel, better known for his mellow pop and light-FM station reputation, would maintain a high-energy, high-impact show. He jammed, he gyrated, he tapdanced, he even stomped on his piano. This Joel planned to have fun despite the hooplah, and he let the whole crowd in on the joke with him.

The crowd's first clue to Joel's intent was the Piano Man's appearance on stage sans piano. Instead, he jammed on an electric guitar with his classic "A Matter of Trust" and immediately set the stage for the rest of the act.

From there, he kept up the pace with songs from his new album and some of his more classic hits. Though the concert in many ways reflected the theme of his new work, "A River of Dreams"--preserving the classic Billy Joel sound within harder rock tunes--he surprisingly included only five of his new songs in the show.

Even during the few slower numbers that Joel interspersed throughout the performance, he managed to maintain the emotionally charged energy of the rest of the show. "Lullaby," off the new album, seems destined to be a classic, and the choice to segue directly from the slower moving ballad to his new single, "A River of Dreams," enabled him to get the crowd swaying to its compulsive beat without loss of momentum.

Unfortunately, Joel could not continue this level of performance indefinitely. After a frantic version of "Pressure," which left the crowd frenetic, Joel seemed to run out of steam temporarily. He wandered into another song from the new album, "Shades of Grey." Joel seemed to realize that the slower song did not quite fit into the act, and even apologized at length for playing the unfamiliar song so early in the tour.

The two follow-up songs--"Downeaster Alexis," one of the better tracks off the Storm Front album, and "Shameless," one of the worst--were similarly uninspired. Not that Joel didn't try. During the latter, he featured his guitar player in a long solo, while he himself sang much of the song in a dramatic duet with his vocalist. But the showmanship which had otherwise served to enhance the music could do nothing to salvage these lacksadaisical performances.

Joel did eventually come back as if recharged by the music itself and took the audience up to new heights. The latter half of the show featured Joel at his classic best. In an amazingly heartfelt "Goodnight Saigon," Joel recaptured his previous energy. (And when, due to a technical glitch, Joel's piano failed to rise from the pit onto the stage, he simply jumped down and played from below).

However, the best moments of the concert all came at the end. Taking out his sunglasses and strutting around for an incredibly soulful rendition of "An Innocent Man," Joel played the crowd for all he was worth. From there on, he seemed as if a man possessed, and blazed through "You May Be Right," "Only the Good Die Young," and "Big Shot."

Of course, the man who appeared on stage with a guitar was still, at heart, the Piano Man. By the time of the encore, the crowd had absorbed Joel's hyper energy, and, swaying in unison, drowned him out when he sang his signature song.

During the shooting of the music video, some intrepid fans hung out a sign which read "Billy Joel: All About Soul." That night, he certainly was.