The one tour that almost destroyed Billy Joel: “It was torturous”
Billy Joel has always been a force of nature as a live performer, first and foremost. He could certainly deliver on record and take a few risks like his heroes, but the lion’s share of his greatest moments come when seeing him onstage, working his band so well it puts younger rock acts to shame. Despite being one of the biggest pros on the live stage, Joel remembered a few shows with Elton John being an absolute nightmare to get through.
Then again, this wasn’t a case of having a battle royale between both superstar pianists. If anything, both of them tended to see each other as allies in a world dominated by guitars, so to hear tracks like ‘Piano Man’ and ‘Your Song’ gaining traction in the era of Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith was a breath of fresh air.
Joel readily admits that John can outplay him. Both had lessons and could perform various classical pieces, but Joel prided himself on being an exceptional songwriter. He believed that John could outperform him on their instrument half the time, which is significant praise from someone who composed tracks like ‘Scenes from an Italian Restaurant’.
After deciding to go on tour together in the 1990s, though, things began to fall apart between the two legs of the tour. Joel was never known to be that kind of rock star, but one too many nights out led to him blowing out his voice, which required him to cancel a handful of gigs.
But John isn’t one to cancel so easily. This was going to be his next extensive tour of England, and since one of the gigs that Joel wanted to postpone took place in Manchester, John didn’t want to upset his audience again since he had already been to the city a few years before and walked off stage in a huff.
According to production designer Steven Cohen, John refused to let Joel off the hook throughout the tour, saying in Joel’s biography, “If we’d blown off Manchester, we would’ve had six days off, and Billy would’ve recovered. Elton would not cancel, saying, ‘I don’t give a fuck. He’s not taking care of himself.’ That was his attitude. So Billy just continued. He was getting sicker and sicker.”
In the end, Joel decided to pull out of the tour, which led to years of animosity between him and John. While there wasn’t nearly as much mudslinging in the press, John would usually be coy about putting his friend in his place, including playing a version of ‘Piano Man’ when he decided to complete the tour as a solo act.
Still, it’s not like Joel had much to complain about. Yes, he would eventually need some time off to recover from his vocal problems, but getting the chance to be inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a few months later probably didn’t hurt matters, either.
And he and John would eventually patch things up as well, leading to a handful of co-headlining shows in the future, with the occasional jab at each other about Joel not releasing as much new material as he could. John may have had an effect on Joel getting back into the swing of things when he recorded ‘Turn the Lights Back On’, but when looking at their shows back to back, it would be easy to fill up three hours onstage with nothing but classics.
