Monday night, I went to see Billy Joel play Fresno. I left work around 3 PM, drove four hours each way, with a stop in Ventura to pick up and drop off a friend, and got back home at 3 AM. It was worth it.

The show really wasn’t very different than most of the other times I’ve seen him. The setlist (below) was pretty standard, without any real surprises. With the exception of Root Beer Rag (which was great), I had heard all of the songs in concert before. I guess the biggest surprise was that he would have even considered playing She’s Right on Time, but the audience voted for Vienna instead, which was just fine with me. Some of the jokes he told were new since the last tour, and pretty funny. It turned out to be a pretty standard Billy Joel show, which means it was awesome. If anyone one reading this has a chance to see him on this tour (Russ, Chicago, Dec 1), you should absolutely do it.

I bought the tickets on eBay, paid about half of face value, and had third row seats just above the floor, one section in. They were great seats, much better than my cameraphone pic makes it seem. Before buying them, I looked everywhere for tickets behind the stage, because those are usually the best seats for his concerts. Ticketmaster’s website had a “behind the stage option,” but said they were sold out. None of the ticket sites or eBay had any tickets in those sections. It turns out that’s because those seats weren’t used for the concert, so I ended up in about the next best place.

Setlist:
Angry Young Man
My Life
Everybody Loves You Now
The Entertainer
Vienna (voted by the audience over Summer, Highland Falls and She’s Right on Time)
Ballad of Billy the Kid
Allentown
Zanzibar
New York State of Mind
Root Beer Rag
Movin’ Out
An Innocent Man
Don’t Ask Me Why
She’s Always a Woman
River of Dreams
Highway to Hell
We Didn’t Start the Fire
Big Shot
It’s Still Rock ‘n Roll to Me
You May Be Right
—
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant
Only the Good Die Young
Piano Man

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