Billy Joel Pulls the Curtain at Shea

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

There is some suitable symmetry in Billy Joel giving the final musical performance at Shea Stadium. As a budding singer-songwriter in 1964, Mr. Joel looked out at the American music scene and despaired. The charts were full of soul hits, which left him cold.

“I was a kid from Levittown, so how much soul did I have at that point?” he once said of his childhood. Then one evening in February 1964, like much of the rest of America, he watched on television as Ed Sullivan ushered the Beatles into the American consciousness. The brief history of pop music was about to take a step change and nothing would be quite the same, not least for Mr. Joel.

He remembered watching the Beatles and realizing that they were “just like me and my friends, a bunch of wiseguys, street kids.” The arrival of the Beatles, he thought, “made it all possible. It made it all conceivable. ‘That is what I want to do.'” Inspired by the four working-class boys from Liverpool, Mr. Joel and his starstruck pals retooled themselves as a Beatles cover band, specializing in the hits of the British invasion.

More than 40 years later, Mr. Joel has been dealt a singular honor: He will be the final musical performer on the baseball field at Shea Stadium, where he will play two concerts, on July 16 and 18. Never intended by its architects as a concert venue, Shea, which will give way to the new Citi Field for the 2009 baseball season, has nevertheless stamped its name on the history of music in America, having hosted not only the Beatles, but Led Zeppelin, the Clash, the Who, Bruce Springsteen, and others. Some even call it the “most hallowed venue in rock history.”

More Beatles fans saw the Fab Four perform at Shea Stadium, once in 1965 and again in 1966, than at any other venue in America, though it is worth stressing that Beatles fans only saw their heroes up in Flushing: Thanks to the wailing wall of shrieks and cries pouring from the bleachers, no one, including the Beatles themselves, could hear what they were playing.

Today, major rock concerts have moved from baseball stadiums to more spacious football stadiums, but it wasn’t until the Beatles arrived at Shea in 1965 that any music act had even been struck with the idea to fill a sporting venue. The group’s manager, Brian Epstein, turned to stadiums to meet the overwhelming demand from Beatles fans to see their young heroes. Looking for an enormous space to show off his lucrative acquisition, Epstein rejected the old Madison Square Garden as too small. When he was told the Garden was the largest venue in New York, Epstein responded, “Then we’ll book football stadiums. We’ll fill the largest arenas in the world.”

The Beatles concert on August 15, 1965, was such a money-spinner that they returned for an encore performance the following October. Epstein’s decision to play on a baseball field was intended to make a fast buck, and the Beatles did well, earning $283,000 in ticket sales from an audience of 55,600. But the chaotic, ear-shattering Shea experience was among the final dispiriting straws for a band increasingly concentrated on studio craft, and it heralded the end to the Beatles’ playing days.

Looking back on the set list the band played at its first Shea concert, the full horror of playing to such a large audience is evident. The fans had not come to hear the Beatles, but to see them from afar (which they did: The stage was set up at second base and the crowd was confined to the stadium’s seats). They were suffering from Beatlemania — a desire to scream and weep uncontrollably at any mention of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Little wonder that John Lennon soon found himself in hot water for remarking that it appeared the Beatles had become more popular than Jesus Christ — or that when Pope John Paul II visited New York in 1979, he chose Shea Stadium to host his audience.

The first Shea concert, however, was a pivotal event that soon brought great changes to the Beatles and to the rest of the music industry. It was evident to Lennon and Paul McCartney that it was their mere presence, not the music they were proud of, that was demanded from a baseball stadium full of screaming fans. And they did not find it flattering. If anything it was tedious, and performing live, once such a pleasure, soon became an exhausting, disillusioning occupation.

Their decision to withdraw from live performances and concentrate instead on studio recording drastically altered not only their own output, but that of their most talented peers. Meanwhile, others learned to work in stadiums, blazing the lucrative trail the Beatles has been too reluctant to follow. Five years after the Beatles left Shea Stadium, the infinitely less talented Grand Funk Railroad sold the stadium out faster than the Fab Four had. Soon to follow were Jethro Tull in 1976, the Who in 1982, Simon and Garfunkel in 1983, the Police in 1983, the Rolling Stones in 1989, Elton John & Eric Clapton in 1992, and Bruce Springsteen in 2003.

The fans have always shown up, but the rise of stadium rock undeniably hastened some of the most dislikable aspects of the music business. Delivered on a massive scale, at enormous volume, surrounded by elaborate light systems and big screens to distract from the humdrum playing, stadium concerts gave birth to rock ‘n’ roll as a cynical trial on the senses and a detriment to the music being played. Perhaps that is why, when the Beatles dissolved their partnership in 1970, all four went back to performing in front of small audiences.

For Mr. Joel, the “Last Play at Shea” concerts can be a vindication of his decision to follow the Beatles into the business, and evidence that it is possible to sing studio songs to a vast stadium of people and still be heard.

Ostensibly to mark the 30th anniversary of his landmark album “The Stranger,” featuring such standards as “Just the Way You Are,” “Only The Good Die Young,” “She’s Always a Woman,” and “Movin’ Out,” Mr. Joel will inevitably bring down the curtain on a magical Beatles episode in New York history. He may be excused for slipping at least one last Lennon and McCartney song into his set.


The New York Sun

© 2025 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

or
By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use