"I see they've given the old boiler a paint job"

Indeed they have. Wembley Arena has been knocked down and rebuilt and on Monday I finally got to go to the new and modern building. The reason? Well, I got a 2:1 so my mum bought tickets for the Billy Joel gig as a present. It meant leaving work early and getting a train at half six the next morning, thus being a proper person, but it was worth it. Billy Joel is an absolute legend and I don't think I could quite believe I was actually going to see him play live.

The new Arena seemed to have better accoustics. The lighting was lots of fun, and you know how much I love lighting. And Billy Joel, well he was fantastic. His banter with the audience was hilarious and his band were amazing. One of the highlights was when he spun the mike stand round - I must remember to suggest that to someone sometime. It's a good trick.

The whole audience were singing along to almost every song, and on the slow songs you could hear everyone so clearly. It's hair standing up on neck stuff. By the end, his last song after the long encore was Piano Man, everyone was singing along to the point that he didn't need to. The band stopped, he stopped, and all you could hear was the whole arena standing and singing the lyrics back to him.

And then it's at this point that I mention Fox, because well, you can't really have a Billy Joel blog without connecting him to it, and I have reason to. Three years ago I heard James sing a Billy Joel track, I stole my mum's cd and listened to it continuously for about three weeks. I went to see Movin' Out in New York last summer and in London in March this year. And I want to say thank you James, not for the fact that everytime I hear Scenes from an Italian Restaurant I think of Jurys and "play Scenes of an Italian Restaurant...wrong!" but because you basically introduced me to the music of Mr Billy Joel and for that I thank you. As for Billy Joel, well I want to steal a very good phrase that Abba once used, and Corinne and I steal on numerous occasions, thank you for the music.