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Although the concert video Billy Joel Live From Long Island was never released on CD as an album, I have included it here because of its popularity among Billy Joel fans. The concert video was recorded on December 29, 1982 at Long Island's Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum during The Nylon Curtain tour. At the time Billy and his band were at or near the peak of their popularity and performing prowess (notwithstanding that Mark Rivera had replaced Richie Cannata on saxophone, both excellent musicians).
Unlike in his earlier concert video Billy Joel Tonight (1976) where Billy stayed perched behind his piano for most of the night, in Live From Long Island Billy scrambles across the stage like a virtuoso musical madman, entertaining the audience, the band, and even himself. The addition of keyboard player David LeBolt to the band, himself an energetic performer, freed up Billy to leave the piano bench and roam the stage more than ever before. The concert video showcased that Billy was not just a top musician and songwriter, but was also a first-class performer who could entertain audiences with his actions and antics. Although the video does not contain much of the humorous dialogue that Billy was known for in his concerts, it does show him dancing and mugging to crowd-pleasers like "Sometimes A Fantasy," "Pressure," and "Only The Good Die Young." The band gets involved too, raising a toast to the audience with a bottle of wine during the opening of "Scenes from An Italian Restaurant." Although the actual concert featured 22 songs, the video concert only had 16 of those songs. It was broadcast on HBO and then later released on VHS and laserdisc, but was never released on DVD. Again, there is no corresponding music album. But you can listen to a re-constructed version of the complete concert here (YouTube) and on the Video & Audio tabbed page above. You can watch the video concert on the same tabbed page above. There is also a short promotional clip for the concert video as well. Many Billy Joel fans consider Live from Long Island to be Billy's best concert video, even better than the later-released Kohuept, Live at Yankee Stadium and Live at Shea. There is an energy and ebullience to Live from Long Island that exudes from the video, more so than in the other ones. You can read the positive review of the televised concert from The New York Times ("a super show") at the Reviews tab, above. * * * * * * * * * At the time that Live from Long Island was released, both music videos and concert videos were becoming increasingly popular. I forced my high school friends to spend one night watching this video with me, which they graciously did though their musical tastes were different (Van Halen, Billy Squier, Def Leppard, but John Mellencamp too). It was the next best thing to being at a Billy Joel concert.
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Songs
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Actual Concert Setlist
1. Allentown
2. My Life 3. Prelude/Angry Young Man 4. Piano Man 5. Don't Ask Me Why 6. The Stranger 7. Scandinavian Skies 8. Movin' Out (Anthony's Song) 9. She's Always a Woman 10. Pressure 11. Scenes From an Italian Restaurant 12. Just the Way You Are 13. Goodnight Saigon 14. Stiletto 15. Until the Night 16. It's Still Rock and Roll to Me 17. Sometimes a Fantasy 18. Big Shot 19. You May Be Right Encore 1 20. Only The Good Die Young Encore 2 21. Where's The Orchestra? 22. Souvenir |
Video Concert Track List
1. Allentown 2. My Life 3. Prelude/Angry Young Man 4. Piano Man 5. The Stranger 6. Scandinavian Skies 7. Movin' Out (Anthony's Song) 8. Pressure 9. Scenes From an Italian Restaurant 10. Just the Way You Are 11. It's Still Rock and Roll to Me 12. Sometimes a Fantasy 13. Big Shot 14. You May Be Right 15. Only The Good Die Young 16. Souvenir Missing:
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Lyrics
(coming soon)
(coming soon)
Video Album
This is a YouTube playlist of Live From Long Island, filmed at Long Island's Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on December 29, 1982. There are multiple versions here including a shorter version from Japan television. The last song in the playlist, Auld Lang Syne, is from a December 31, 1982 concert at the same venue.
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1. Allentown
2. My Life 3. Prelude/Angry Young Man 4. Piano Man 5. The Stranger 6. Scandinavian Skies 7. Movin' Out (Anthony's Song) 8. Pressure 9. Scenes From an Italian Restaurant 10. Just the Way You Are |
11. Goodnight Saigon (not in the VHS video, but available on YouTube playlist)
12. Until The Night (not in the VHS video, but available on YouTube playlist) 13. It's Still Rock and Roll to Me 14. Sometimes a Fantasy 15. Big Shot 16. You May Be Right 17. Only The Good Die Young 18. Souvenir |
Audio Concert
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This is audio of the complete concert by YouTube account Activer Music. It has been put together from various sources.
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Interviews
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This is a promotional interview video for Live from Long Island. Billy comments about how live concert videos are still relatively new and a good way to reach a larger audience.
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This is an interview with Billy Joel from Entertainment Tonight in 1982 just before the concert video was aired on HBO (1982)
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Audio of rare promotion-only cassette that CBS released in Holland in support of Billy Joel's 1982 album, The Nylon Curtain. Posted by YouTube account David P-NewEngland who states: "Billy Joel Interview : Behind Nylon Curtains" . . . Interviewer Roger Scott Recorded in London in July 1982 . . . For copyright reasons, I had to delete all of the actual music. On the cassette, Roger Scott and Billy Joel discuss each song before playing them. So what you are listening to is just the talking/interview portion of the cassette."
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Live from Long Island VHS cover (1982)
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Read a review of the HBO concert special by John J. O'Connor in The New York Times from 1983, also below: "THE big special this weekend on Home Box Office, the pay-cable channel, is the premiere of ''Billy Joel in Concert,'' taped at the Nassau Coliseum in Long Island at the close of a 36-city tour of the United States. This is the first solo television appearance for Mr. Joel and his band, and it can be seen Sunday at 8 P.M. "Mr. Joel is something of a perplexing performer, especially for those who prefer the more hard-edge rock of, say, Bruce Springsteen. A native of Hicksville, L.I., Mr. Joel has over the last 12 years won a parcel of Grammy Awards and posted sales of some 35 million albums. His songs range from ballads to driving rock and a kind of patter routine speaking to the anxieties of growing up in suburbia. He can be surprising, no more so than when he turned out to be the smash hit of an American concert in Cuba a couple of years ago. "Like Neil Sedaka, Mr. Joel does not look like a pop rocker. He is not pretty or prepossessing. He wears a tie and is partial to sports jackets that have an air of squareness about them. But then, as at this concert, there is always the unusual detail: he is wearing white sneakers. He gives the feeling that he is never completely what he seems. "The session, cheered on throughout by an unflaggingly enthusiastic audience opens with ''Allentown,'' a recent composition about youthful years with fathers who served in World War II and summer visits to the Jersey shore. For the first several numbers, Mr. Joel sits at the piano, playing and singing with verve, but with the kind of distance that audiences usually associate with Perry Como. With ''Pressure,'' however, one of his latest hits, he gets up and begins moving slowly about the stage." "He and his musicians even use stage props at times. ''Scenes From an Italian Restaurant'' provides an excuse to open a bottle of wine for on-stage consumption. Naturally, Mr. Joel gets to sing the ballad ''Just the Way You Are,'' one of his biggest hits. And the pacing of the show keeps accelerating with numbers like ''It's Still Rock-and-Roll to Me,'' ''Big Shot'' and ''Only the Good Die Young.'' By the end of the set, the distance between the performer and his material has just about disappeared completely as, with astonishing energy, he ''works'' the house with all the mastery of a Mick Jagger. "Directed by Jay Dubin for television, this is a super show. A good deal of the credit must also go to the musicians, especially Mark Rivera, the saxophonist, who is so energetic and expressive that, at times, he comes close to stealing the spotlight from the star. But Mr. Joel remains carefully in control and, in the process, is quite impressive. The concert is being simulcast in stereo over WNEW-FM." |
The Nylon Curtain tour book (1982)
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Tracks
1. Allentown 2. My Life 3. Prelude/Angry Young Man 4. Piano Man 5. The Stranger 6. Scandinavian Skies 7. Movin' Out (Anthony's Song) 8. Pressure 9. Scenes From an Italian Restaurant 10. Just the Way You Are 11. It's Still Rock and Roll to Me 12. Sometimes a Fantasy 13. Big Shot 14. You May Be Right 15. Only The Good Die Young 16. Souvenir |
Production and Musicians
Jon Small - Producer
Jay Dubin - Director Billy Joel - Piano, keyboard, vocals David Brown - Guitar Liberty DeVitto - Drums Russell Javors - Guitar David LeBolt -Keyboards Mark Rivera - Saxophon Doug Stegmyer - Bass Brian Ruggles - Sound Steve Cohen - Lights Recorded December 29, 1982 at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum |
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