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>>Actually my wife wanted to see Billy Joel very much; I liked him too but not $400-worth much :). But her wish was my command and we gladly paid for these tickets. And she enjoyed the concert very much. I did too but tend to be more "people watcher" than the concert watcher. It is interesting to see how people react. What really surprised me is to see a group of young men (no more than 20 yo) who came to see Billy Joel and were dancing, sharing food, and truly enjoying themselves. I thought that only old farts like me would like Billy Joel. This really raised the new generation in my eyes.
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>>Speaking about Billy Joel, I like reading biographies and one that stands in my mind was late Phil Ramone's autobiography. He was Billy Joel's producer, there were a lot of their professional relationship in the book.
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>My wife gets upset with me sometimes when I give my opinion of Billy Joel.
>
>I love his work up until the early 1980's.
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>The album "Songs in the Attic" is my favorite - I love the live version of "Miami 2017". Every track on that album is outstanding, and many of them have a great edge to them.
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>But I can't stand about 90% of the crap he did after meeting Christine Brinkley (or whatever her name is). When I hear "Uptown Girl", I mock it by singing "Up-chuck Girl". Or my alternate lyrics for "Tell Her About it..." (the most idiotic video I've ever seen)
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>"Keep it a secret...
>Don't clue her in your past
>Don't give her any reason
>that you're secretly bad-ass"
>
>
>As the UT great TC Holzer once said, "Kevin doesn't do touchy-feely". And that pretty much sums up most of Joel's later works....touchy feely. (Same thing applies for Phil Collins)

So I guess mentioning Chris de Burgh will create something between shudder and surpressing vomit at your side ;-)
(There are perhaps half a dozen songs not urging "skip" when encountering songs of him in the car for me, but for others it is usual reaction)

That said, about 25 years ago girl I was seeing back then wanted to see him very much - so I took her.

He was - at least that night - one of the performers combining repertoire with evoking audience reaction to IMO much better total perf than CD sound. Even if I did not really like even half of the songs performed, all in all it was not a bad evening, as the songs (at least to my ears) were not as "bad" as encountered in the car for instance.

I would never have expected him to be a "Rampensau" (a german expression probably not existing/translatable in English, often bad in theater but good on music stage - a performer going into [positive] overdrive whenever on stage - compared to normal "behaviour" or studio performance).

Does not stop me from fast-forwarding/skipping/chaning channels most his songs in the car, but if another female wants to go to a de Burgh concert I'd not run away screaming