Billy Joel band members recall 1990's Yankee Stadium shows

For Billy Joel’s longtime drummer Liberty DeVitto, their two shows at Yankee Stadium were nights to remember — partly because at one point, the drummer got the rare chance to replace Joel on the microphone.

“Billy could not remember the lyrics to ‘Shout,’ ” DeVitto recalled, explaining why Joel suddenly turned from the crowd mid-song and pointed the microphone at the drum kit. Luckily, DeVitto knew the words and leaned forward to sing, nearly rising off his throne to reach the mic — but never missing a beat. “That was not rehearsed,” DeVitto said. “That was the first time it ever happened, and the last time it ever happened.”

That moment and many others can be seen in “Billy Joel: Live at Yankee Stadium,” which captures Joel and his band in top form on June 22 and 23, 1990. The two-night stand marked the first time a proper rock concert had ever been staged at the legendary sports venue. It also helped cement Joel’s status as New York’s favorite rock and roll son. Much of Joel's band was from the area, too, including the Seaford-raised DeVitto, guitarist Tommy Byrnes of Oceanside and Joel’s longtime saxophonist and then-musical director, Brooklyn-born Mark Rivera.

Shot live on 16mm film, the concert documentary has been reedited in 4K digital format with Dolby ATMOS sound; it also includes a never-before-seen rendition of “Uptown Girl,” Joel’s smash hit from 1983. There are interviews with Joel and legendary promoter Ron Delsener, plus behind-the-scenes footage of the event’s production. The film will play theatrically for two nights only, Oct. 5 and 9 at several Long Island theaters.

“I was born in the Bronx, and I ended up in Hicksville, Long Island,” Joel can be heard telling the crowd in the film. “And here I am back in the Bronx.”

The Yankee Stadium concerts came less than a year after the 1989 release of Joel’s 11th album, “Storm Front,” and the set list draws heavily from it. There’s the title track, which opens the show, along with “That’s Not Her Style,” “The Downeaster ‘Alexa’,” “I Go to Extremes” and the MTV favorite “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” There are also hits and favorites from past albums: A grand version of “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” a hopped-up “Pressure” (featuring Joel pounding on a Korg keyboard rather than his Baldwin piano) and a showstopping, Ray Charles-inspired rendition of “New York State of Mind.”

The show is filled with baseball references, of course: Joel introduces each of his musicians like a sportscaster (“on saxophone, in centerfield …”) and eggs the crowd on with an organ-style riff. During a preshow interview, Joel talks fondly about his Yankee hero Billy Martin, the team's famously feisty manager, who was killed in a car crash six months earlier. “He never played it safe,” Joel says. “I liked that about him.”

Rivera, also a baseball fan since childhood, said it was thrilling to play music in the same place where legends like Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth lived out some of their most glorious moments. “I have photographs of myself wearing a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt with my arm draped over Babe Ruth’s monument,” Rivera said. He added that Joel felt the same awe, and he swears you can see it in the singer’s eyes just after the opening number.

“Billy pauses for a moment and looks around, and he’s kind of saying, ‘We actually pulled this off,’” according to Rivera. “You’ll see Billy’s face — he’s like a 12-year-old kid.”

For Crystal Taliefero, the band’s multi-instrumentalist (sax, percussion and vocals), the experience was almost entirely new. The Indiana-raised musician had recently joined Joel after stints with John Mellencamp and Bob Seger, she said, and the Yankee Stadium shows were part of her first tour with the group.

“I was just in awe of how big it was,” she said of the stadium. “When they were building the stage, I was just thinking: ‘That’s a big stage.’”

As a new member, Taliefero said, “When they said jump, I said how high?” At one point, lighting director Steve Cohen told her to run, she said, which is why she can be seen dashing madly around during “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” And when she and bassist Schuyler Deale spotted a skimpy dress in a shop one day, according to Taliefero, he suggested she buy it, which is how she ended up strutting around in it during “That’s Not Her Style.”

“They’re my brothers, they’re like family,” Taliefero said of Joel’s Yankee Stadium lineup. “Me and them fellas, we’ve been to the mountaintop.”

The film also serves as a nostalgic time capsule. The fashions are still pure 1980s: Rivera wears a sleeveless denim jacket, while Taliefero sports a pair of homemade billowing trousers (“my Hammer pants,” she said with a laugh). There are glimmers of bygone relationships, too: A close-up of Joel’s fingers during “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” shows his gold wedding band from his marriage to Christie Brinkley, which would end in 1994, and the presence of DeVitto is a reminder of the drummer’s unceremonious ouster from the band in 2005 (a rift that has somewhat healed in recent years).

One of DeVitto’s favorite moments from the film is “The Downeaster ‘Alexa’,” he said. “I really think that you can see the relationship with me and Billy in that song. It’s almost like it’s the two of us playing to each other. He’s listening to me, and I’m listening to him.”

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com@raferguzman