Happy Birthday

If you can stand by a moment for a bit of non-preservation related kvelling....Billy Joel celebrated his 58th birthday last night, here in Saint Paul at the Excel Center. I saw him first in 1985, and a few times since. Billy Joel is truly one of the greatest musicians in the world. His songs gently pull you in, then blow you away with layers of sound and poetic lyrics. In concert, he is entertaining, self-deprecating, generous to the audience (especially those in the bad seats), funny, and he's a great mimic. He did a version of "Like A Rolling Stone" and sounded more like Dylan that Dylan does anymore. Highlights included one of his guitar roadies coming out and signing, I kid you not, "Highway to Hell" (sounded just like AC/DC), and Billy doing "Big Shot" in a hip-hop style (backwards baseball cap and related....movements). Just terrific. Closed with "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" and "Piano Man".

I would have recorded more, but my camera was full of pictures of Duluth, which Charlotte will be blogging about later.

This has been a public service announcement. Now back to our regular programming.