Billy Joel - VH-1 Storytellers, Sony Studios, New York City, 9-11-1997

I'm discovering most of these "VH-1 Storytellers" episodes for the first time as I put them together for this music blog. I find most of them interesting, but this Billy Joel one is extra special. For one thing, it's extra long. This was a rare case when the concert was edited down to two episodes of about 45 minutes each, instead of one. Furthermore, I was able to find a YouTube video of some outtakes, and I added those in. So this is longer than it's ever been presented as one piece before, and it feels like a full concert (even though there probably are still some missing bits). For another thing, Joel really let it all hang out in this. He talked quite freely and extensively between songs, and played many songs he otherwise never would have played in his regular concerts, instead of most of the expected big hits. Consider that this includes cover versions of "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix, "Sunshine of Your Love" by Cream, and even "Good Times, Bad Times" by Led Zeppelin!

Technically, I suppose Joel did this concert to help promote his "Greatest Hits, Volume III" album, which was released the month before. But that had only three new songs on it, and he didn't play any of them. He didn't even mention the album. He barely even did any concerts that year. Other than this, he played a couple of songs on a TV show, and did two classical music performances. Instead, he seemed to just playing whatever came to mind based on audience questions, and there were lots of audience questions. For instance, one person asked a question about the song "No Man's Land." He clearly wasn't ready to play that, but he stalled for time with talking while giving his band a chance to quietly talk amongst themselves to get ready, then he played it.

The songs I added in were "Purple Haze" and "Good Times, Bad Times." The outtakes video I took these from didn't have the same quality as the rest. There were many sonic flaws on them, to the point that I wasn't sure if I should include them. But I noticed that the vast majority were just on one of the two stereo channels. So I deleted that channel and duplicated the other one. So those two songs are effectively mono. But they sound much better that way, even though there are still some sonic flaws. I also found some other bits of banter from the outtakes video and added those in. That included adding some to the end of the brief "lounge version" of "Just the Way You Are."

If you're a Billy Joel fan, I think this is a must have. I'll bet he's never done another concert like this one before or since.

The album is an hour and 30 minutes long.

01 talk (Billy Joel)
02 River of Dreams (Billy Joel)
03 talk (Billy Joel)
04 Movin' Out (Billy Joel)
05 talk (Billy Joel)
06 Allentown (Billy Joel)
07 talk (Billy Joel)
08 Sunshine of Your Love (Billy Joel)
09 talk (Billy Joel)
10 Purple Haze (Billy Joel)
11 talk (Billy Joel)
12 Honesty (Billy Joel with David Krout)
13 talk (Billy Joel)
14 Scenes from an Italian Restaurant (Billy Joel)
15 talk (Billy Joel)
16 Just the Way You Are [Lounge Version] (Billy Joel)
17 I Go to Extremes (Billy Joel)
18 A Matter of Trust (Billy Joel)
19 talk (Billy Joel)
20 No Man's Land (Billy Joel)
21 talk (Billy Joel)
22 Good Times, Bad Times (Billy Joel)
23 talk (Billy Joel)
24 Summer, Highland Falls (Billy Joel)
25 talk (Billy Joel)
26 A Room of Our Own (Billy Joel)
27 Don't Ask Me Why (Billy Joel)
28 talk (Billy Joel)
29 A Hard Day's Night (Billy Joel)
30 talk (Billy Joel)
31 Gimme Some Lovin' (Billy Joel)
32 talk (Billy Joel)
33 Eroica Highlights and Discussion (Billy Joel)
34 talk (Billy Joel)
35 We Didn't Start the Fire (Billy Joel)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17069218/BILLYJL1997StrytllrsSnyStdosNwYrkC__9-11-1997_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/P4mECUFi

The cover is a screenshot from this exact concert.