NEW YORK 1981

Disc 1:  You May Be Right, My Life, Honesty, Los Angelinos, You're My Home, Everybody Loves You Now, She's Got A Way, Sleeping With The TV On, The Stranger, Stiletto, I've Loved These Days, Say Goodbye To Hollywood.

Disc 2:  Captain Jack, Only The Good Die Young, All For Leyna, Sometimes A Fantasy, Miami 2017, Big Shot, Still Rock 'n' Roll To Me, Scenes From An Italian Restaurant.

It is commendable that Billy Joel, after achieving success with The Stranger and Glass Houses in 1980, still played the occasional bar.  This soundboard from Sparks in Manhasset (which has since burned down) is a good, intimate soundboard recording.  The levels were not set properly and there is a fair amount of distortion and compression on the tape.  The Jamrec label claims this comes from the master tape and has been speed corrected.  The former claim is debatable (don't a majority of releases make that claim?), but the latter is accurate.  Also copies of the tape have circulated that were missing "Sometimes A Fantasy", "Still Rock And Roll To Me", and "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant".

The show itself is very good.  Joel carries on bantering with the audience, telling jokes and making Rodney Dangerfield and Joe Cocker impressions.  Before "Big Shot" he goes into a lengthy wedding singer impression, even calling out for the mother of the bride!  Overall this is a fun show and an enjoyable way to recall his piano man days.  The date for this show is unknown.  Jamrec have placed it in June 1981 but other sources list it as July 1981.  We can safely put it in the summer between his April tour of Japan (he uses Japanese word for "stupid") and the late August release of Songs From The Attic, which he says is coming out.  New York 1981 was released on February 3rd of this year.  A week later this same tape was given a silver release as Long Island 1981 on Audio Publisher (AP-008/9).  My guess is they are identical but that remains to be discovered.