He toyed with the opening piano lick of Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” before telling the band he was aborting it and moving on to his own “Only the Good Die Young.” Those Motor City classics included Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” and Martha & the Vandellas' “Dancing in the Street,” the latter dropped into Joel’s “River of Dreams” with backing singer Crystal Taliefero on vocals. It wouldn’t be a Joel show in Detroit without some affectionate Motown covers. 'She knows music': Billy Joel says Taylor Swift is like The Beatles of her generationīilly Joel performs at Comerica Park in Detroit on Saturday, July 9, 2022.
His excavation of lesser-played stuff also included the barrelhouse Beatlesque romp “A Room of Our Own,” a 1982 album cut he hardly performed live at the time. When he got to the chorus, he more or less did it, prompting cheers – although because he has dropped the song’s key in concert, the low notes now presented their own challenges. That included several '80s hits that have received little stage time in recent years: a galloping “I Go to Extremes,” a chirpy “Keeping the Faith,” a tempestuous “An Innocent Man.” Ahead of that last 1983 hit, Joel warned the crowd it contained a high note that was harder than ever to hit. Joel served up enduring hits while digging a bit deeper into his catalog. But he brought a familiar pleasing tone, still reliably calling on his falsetto and the old Ray Charles vocalisms embedded in numbers such as “Just the Way You Are,” “Vienna” and “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.” A gravely edge has made its way into Joel’s singing in recent years, and he has lost control in spots (notably Saturday on the high notes of “She’s Always a Woman”).
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