Back in July of 2008 I was in New York City, I went in town to check out Shea and Yankee Stadium one last time. I caught a Sunday night game at Shea and then on Friday a night game at Yankee Stadium. That very same Friday night there was a Billy Joel concert in town at Shea Sstadium. That concert would happen to be the last concert at Shea Stadium, so I ended up missing out on a very historic night. Luckily most of the show has been released on CD and DVD.
Just released was the 2 CD/1 DVD from Billy Joel called Live at Shea Stadium, the Concert. The track listing for the CD and DVD are the same (althought the DVD features some bonus material including a performance of Walk This Way with Steven Tyler). Over 2 hours of music including the classics You May Be Right, Scenes from An Italian Restaurant and Piano Man. I’m always as amazed as sad as the lyrics are in Allentown the great response the song gets (although its one of my favorite too). There are some special guests on the album as well including Tony Bennett on New York State of Mind and Paul McCartney (who played the first show at Shea with the Beatles) performs on I Saw Her Standing There and Let It Be. The performance sounds great and there are many highlights including the addition of musicians for The Ballad of Billy the Kid and Goodnight Saigon that add more to the song than you can imagine.
The DVD quality looks great in HD and the sound on both the CD and DVD is incredible too and I’m one that can be pretty picky about the sound of live albums.
I’m still kicking myself for not going all those years ago, I could have been there, I had a chance when tickets when on sale and I passed on it. Thankfully it’s been released!