11.10.11

“The Last Play at Shea” – Nov 11 premiere

The Last Play At Shea Preview: Showtime’s Billy Joel Concert Documentary
Airs This Friday
Author: Kelly West

Billy Joel fans are going to want to tune in to Showtime later this week as
the pay-cable channel is set to air The Last Play at Shea, a documentary
that looks behind the scenes of Billy Joel’s final performance at Shea
Stadium before the baseball arena was torn down.
Having grown up on Long Island, I don’t think it’s much of an exaggeration
to say that Billy Joel is something of a local musical hero for a lot of
people from the area. In fact, it wasn’t until I reached adulthood that I
became aware that a love and fairly extensive familiarity with Joel’s music
wasn’t entirely universal. I thought everyone knew all the words to every
song on The Stranger regardless of whether or not they were even alive when
the album came out. Joel’s love of New York is fairly well known and
documented in his music and that also seems to come through in the preview
video below.
Narrated by Alec Baldwin, The Last Play at Shea not only looks at Joel’s
final performance at the Mets’ old stadium, but it will also look back on
the iconic New York landmark. The video below makes great use of some of
Joel’s classic hits, including getting things started with the excellent
momentum-building prelude to “Angry Young Man.” It also includes “Scenes
from an Italian Restaurant,” and “New York State of Mind.”
Last Play at Shea premieres Friday, November 11th at 9:30PM ET/PT on
Showtime.