“Sing us a song, you’re the piano man, sing us a song tonight. Cause we’re all in the mood for a memory, and you got us feeling alright.”

The crowd at the Bi-Lo Center two weeks ago certainly felt that way and Billy Joel was more than happy to comply.

Joel’s tour will pull into the RBC Center in Raleigh this Saturday night. He returned to the road last year for his first solo tour in seven years and has a single, released this Tuesday, titled “All My Life.”

For Joel, his latest tour has been a personal triumph. After being involved in several car accidents and entering alcohol rehab for a brief period, Joel’s life has settled down and is in a better place. He was able to joke about his car troubles when talking to the crowd in the “nosebleed” seats as he thanked them for helping him pay his skyrocketed car insurance bill.

As for the music itself, Joel is generally sticking to the basics, playing mostly hits with a few album cuts. He dug deep into the vault to play a song from the 1971 album, “Cold Spring Harbor,” called “Everybody Loves You Now” and followed that with a song written in 1976 called “The Entertainer.”

Joel also allowed the fans to influence his song selection for one part of the show when he threw out two of his more obscure songs and the one that received the loudest applause was the one played.

A tremendous seven-person band backed Joel and each was provided significant opportunity to shine. Some of those moments included Carl Fischer’s trumpet-playing on the jazzy “Zanzibar,” and Mark Rivera’s saxophone solo during “New York State of Mind.” Tommy Byrnes’ guitar-playing, Chuck Burgi banging on the drums and Crystal Taliefero on basically every instrument possible were complete tour de forces throughout the night.

The real star though, was Joel himself. From the beginning of his piano key pounding on “Angry Young Man,” to the last harmonica note on “Piano Man,” he had the crowd eating out of his hand. Joel showcased his piano-playing antics on both “I Go to Extremes” and “River of Dreams.” On these two songs he showed that even at 57 years old, he can still play and rock with the best of them.

After that came what Joel called the concert’s “American Idol moment.” He brought out a member of his road crew named Chainsaw who sang AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” that had the crowd going nuts.

Joel plowed through more of his hits to end the show, playing “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” “Big Shot,” “It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me,” “You May Be Right,” “Only the Good Die Young” and “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.”

All in all, Joel gave the people what they wanted, lots of familiar melodies that brought smiles to everyone packed into the arena.

A&E Editor: RJ Kraft - 03/01/07