It’s good to be Billy Joel. The veteran singer-songwriter admitted as much Friday at a packed Soldier Field, where he and Stevie Nicks concluded the 2024 stretch of their ongoing Two Icons One Night trek. And really, how could he not?
Primarily seated at a grand piano that rotated on a turntable, and surrounded by a versatile eight-piece band, an affable Joel entertained a football stadium’s worth of people while barely breaking a sweat amid a punishing heat wave. Holding court with recognizable oldies, laissez-faire attitude, goofball humor and his trademark flyswatter, he inhabited the titular role of his signature tune, “Piano Man.”
Sure, the stage was far grander, and the tip jar transformed into merch stands hawking $100 sweatshirts. Yet the gist of Joel’s 135-minute concert connected to the feeling of performances given in bars everywhere by pianists who always take the same requests and still manage to smile: comfort, reminiscence and sing-a-long melodies that slosh around in your head.
At Joel’s outdoor establishment, nostalgia, familiarity and professionalism ruled. The most recent song he sang dated back to President Clinton’s first term. The slickest visuals amounted to the backdrop screens depicting an iPad revealing finger-swiped images of historical figures cited in the listicle anthem “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Joel’s retro-minded approach proved wise. A production with the extravagance embraced by modern pop stars would’ve looked silly.
Besides, who needs choreography teams or pyrotechnics when faithful readings of doo-wop classics get the crowd on its feet? Or when a short snippet of “Hey Joe” — the bluesy revenge tune popularized by Jimi Hendrix — generated pleas for Joel to continue to the next stanza? With cameras panning the audience for reactions and consistently displaying that most fans knew every word to every chorus of Joel’s songs, following the work-smarter-not-harder observations outlined in “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)” seemed a foregone conclusion.
No artist has more successfully traded on their back catalog than Joel. Though his contemporaries keep cranking out LPs, he figured out long ago that traditional release-and-promotion cycles could be bypassed without consequence at the box office. Joel recently said, for him, writing amounts to self-torture and fostered unhealthy addictions. With apparent seriousness, he also suggested that hardly anyone makes albums nowadays, which might surprise those who pay attention to the contemporary music scene.
No matter. Save for three originals, including one (“Turn the Lights Back On”) issued earlier this year, Joel effectively shut off the creative spigot decades ago. Rather than toil in a studio, he spent a majority of the past 30 years filling seats on his own terms. The singer ranks in the top 15 highest-grossing touring artists of all time. Banners touting his streaks of sold-out shows hang from the rafters of multiple East Coast arenas. Next month, Joel will end his unprecedented run of 150 sold-out hometown shows at Madison Square Garden, culminating a residency of the singer playing the venue on a monthly basis for 10 years.
Nice work, if you can get it. Joel mentioned he’s been lucky to do the same job since he was 15. Now 75, his head bald and neatly trimmed facial hair snowy white, the New York City native showed a levity that tended to escape him in the past. Joel derided one of his albums (“Streetlife Serenade”), placed his rock-star moves beneath those of Mick Jagger (a slowed and abbreviated version of the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up”), paused and stared at his watch to elicit a pun (“The Longest Time”) and jested about the lack of special effects.
He also half-jokingly offered a disclaimer regarding his uncertainty about reaching upper-register notes. It contained plenty of truth. Joel’s midrange and low-end scope remain solid. His falsetto, too, admirably blended with group vocals. But attempts at hitting or holding lofty highs failed. A rough ride through “An Innocent Man” found him not only ceding choral elements to others, but stumbling amid verses.
Fortunately, the vocal snafus were limited. Joel activated black-tie crooner mode for an apropos stab at “My Kind of Town,” stood on an imaginary streetcorner for the cascading doo-wop of “Uptown Girl” and unveiled tonal elasticity for the moonlit ballad “New York State of Mind.” Eyebrows arched and eyes wide, he often looked as if he was ready to bite into a tall triple-decker club sandwich when he went all-in on mid-tempo material. Ironically, the most soulful Joel got occurred when multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Crystal Taliefero led a cover of “River Deep — Mountain High” in the middle of “The River of Dreams.”
Brassy horns provided additional assists and paired well with Joel’s stable piano lines. Steadiness, sentimental journeys to fictitious neighborhood joints and check-ins with common characters steered Joel’s direction. Aside from a cover of Puccini’s operatic aria “Nessun dorma” sung by band member Mike DelGuidice, there were no surprises or diversions, and scant edginess to interfere with the breezy moods. Even songs about lust (the drab “Sleeping with the Television On,” the prophetic “Sometimes a Fantasy,” the clever “Only the Good Die Young”) blushed with a high degree of innocence.
“I am not an innocent man,” Joel declared toward the end of the show. Fair enough. His music and persona, however, thrive on that illusion.
Joel boasts more hits than Nicks, yet the Fleetwood Mac legend possessed more depth, charisma and grit. Almost a year to the day since her memorable 2023 show at United Center, the 76-year-old faced several challenges she avoided then. The opening slot forced her to trim her set and curtail her amusing song introductions, though she injected some storytelling by talking at a rapid clip. The biggest issue concerned Nicks’ voice.
She twice apologized for hoarseness and leaned on backing vocalists for extra support. Despite the shortcomings, which extended to overly sharp nasal deliveries, Nicks demonstrated why she continues to enjoy a late-career surge in appreciation and influence. Feisty and forward, the twice-inducted Rock and Roll Hall of Famer kept it real by presenting her raspy, warts-and-all singing without artificial enhancements. Her body language did the rest.
Twirling, curtseying, bowing, air drumming, tracing human silhouettes, leaning into a ribbon-festooned microphone stand as the wind blew her various shawls, capes and wraps: Nicks embodied a magnetic combination of physical energy and mystic mystery. After a threatening version of the serpentining classic “Gold Dust Woman,” she confessed her animated movements represented the struggle to live out the song.
For “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” Nicks invited Joel to step into the role originally occupied by Tom Petty. The duet lacked requisite heat. Joel’s tendency to stare at what appeared to be a TelePrompter scrolling the lyrics snuffed out any potential chemistry. Nicks’ collaboration with her vocal coach, Steve Real, on “Leather and Lace” fared better.
In terms of rock stars overstepping their bounds, one could fault Nicks for imploring people to vote before soon divulging she neglected to cast a ballot for most of her life. Yet given the way she attacked the cautionary “Stand Back” and raised her arm in triumph at its close, you might want to think twice before going after an icon who is having another moment.
Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.
Setlist from Soldier Field June 21:
Stevie Nicks
“Outside the Rain”
“Dreams” (Fleetwood Mac cover)
“If Anyone Falls”
“Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”
“Gypsy” (Fleetwood Mac cover)
“For What It’s Worth” (Buffalo Springfield cover)
“Stand Back”
“Bella Donna”
“Gold Dust Woman” (Fleetwood Mac cover)
“Leather and Lace”
“Edge of Seventeen”
Encore
“Rhiannon” (Fleetwood Mac cover)
“Landslide” (Fleetwood Mac cover)
Billy Joel
“My Life”
“Pressure”
“My Kind of Town” (Jimmy Van Heusen-Sammy Cahn cover)
“Vienna”
“Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)”
“Start Me Up” (Rolling Stones cover)
“An Innocent Man”
“The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (Solomon Linda cover) into “Barbara Ann” (Regents cover)
“The Longest Time”
“Zanzibar”
“Allentown”
“New York State of Mind”
“The Entertainer”
“Sleeping with the Television On”
“Sometimes a Fantasy”
“Only the Good Die Young”
“The River of Dreams” into “River Deep – Mountain High” (Ike and Tina Turner cover) into “The River of Dreams”
“Nessun dorma” (Puccini cover)
“Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”
“Piano Man”
Encore
“We Didn’t Start the Fire”
“Uptown Girl”
“It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me”
“Big Shot”
“You May Be Right”
