Billy Joel
Melbourne Cricket Ground
Melbourne, Australia
Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country
Saturday 10 December 2022

Support: Tina Arena

Recorded by eckythump

Source: Nokia Lumia 930 (called Lumia Icon in North America) w/built-in HAAC mics > Audio Recorder Pro app > 16bit/48 KHz PCM/WAV -> iZotope RX10 Advanced -> Ozone 10 -> Audacity 3.2.2 (split tracks and FLAC Level 8) -> Foobar 1.6.14 (Files tagged) -> Traders Little Helper 2.8.4

Track List:

00 - Intro - The Natural (The End Title)
01 - A Matter Of Trust
02 - My Life
03 - Billy talks
04 - The Entertainer
05 - Waltzing Matilda (snippet)
06 - Vienna
07 - Start Me Up (The Rolling Stones cover, partial)
08 - An Innocent Man
09 - Billy talks
10 - Zanzibar
11 - Just The Way You Are
12 - Billy talks - introduces his kids
13 - Don't Ask Me Why
14 - Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)
15 - She's Always A Woman
16 - Pressure
17 - Allentown
18 - New York State Of Mind
19 - The Downeaster Alexa
20 - Sometimes A Fantasy
21 - Only The Good Die Young
22 - River Of Dreams (w/ River Deep Mountain High)
23 - Nessun Dorma (Mike Delguidice vocals)
24 - Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
25 - Piano Man
26 - Encore break
27 - We Didn't Start The Fire
28 - Uptown Girl (w/ Tina Arena)
29 - It's Still Rock and Roll To Me
30 - Big Shot
31 - You May Be Right

Billy Joel - Vocals, Piano, Guitar, Harmonica
Dave Rosenthal - Keyboards, Piano, Organ
Mark Rivera - Saxophones, Percussion, Vocals
Crystal Taliefero - Percussion, Saxophone, Vocals
Tommy Byrnes - Guitars, Vocals
Andy Cichon - Bass, Vocals
Chuck Burgi - Drums
Carl Fischer - Trumpet, Trombone, Saxophone
Mike Delguidice - Guitar, Vocals

Show Notes: Billy's first show in Melbourne since 2008, and a one show only Australian exclusive, paid for by the Victorian taxpayer as a way for the government to attract tourists back to the city after the Covid issues. It sure worked, because the show sold out in super quick time, with around 76,000 fans packed into the venue that's the sporting capital of Australia. I've never seen or heard a bad Billy show, and this one was no exception, a terrific show in front of a very appreciative, but restrained for the most part crowd. I've seen Billy at Madison Square Garden, and this crowd was nothing like those, sitting for large portions of the show, only fully standing from Piano Man onwards, but this is typical for Australian audiences - if there's a chair you use it! For the Aussies reading this, a few celebs/sporting types were spotted, including Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce, Molly Meldrum, Vince Colosimo, and Wayne Carey. I suspect this will be the last time we'll see Billy in Australia, but I really hope not. A fantastic show with his terrific band, one I won't forget for a long time.

Recording Notes: The tame crowd was a bonus for my recording, which sounds really good. I was in a good spot in an aisle seat in the section behind the ultra expensive seats on the floor (mine was still $300 however!), and with a few tweaks in the Izotope machine it sounds even better. I had a dad and presumably his 3 kids in front of me who were huge fans, they were reasonably restrained but you'll hear them occasionally, particularly one of the kids enthusiastic yelling of 'Marilyn Monroe!' and the son blurted out 'I love you Billy!' at one point but it was fun to see kids loving Billy as much as us oldies. I was even more surprised when the kids went nuts for Zanzibar, I didn't expect that. The crowd really didn't come alive until Piano Man and for the encore, so there's a bit of audience singing as you'd expect, but not too intrusive. I think this is a really fine recording. Enjoy!

Images for all shows as well as full size images for this show.

Images for this show:











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