Billy Joel brings the hits and jokes to Fallsview Casino Resort’s new OLG Stage

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NIAGARA FALLS, Ont. — He sang us some songs alright.

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Billy Joel, aka The Piano Man, delighted a sold-out crowd of 5,000 on Saturday night at Fallsview Casino’s official opening of its new OLG Stage with a two-hour-and-15 minute show stacked with his hits and some great schtick.

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“The bad news is I don’t have anything new to play, the good news is I don’t have to play anything new,” joked Joel, 73, who instead inserted bits of covers like The Rolling Stones (Start Me Up), Gordon Lightfoot (Sundown) and Led Zeppelin (Rock and Roll) into his crowd-pleasing show.

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“That song needs hair,” sniped the balding Joel after attempting an hilarious impersonation of Mick Jagger right down to his hands on his hips during Start Me Up.

The opening of the $130-million OLG Stage, built on the back of the Hilton Niagara Falls which is accessible from Fallsview Casino Resort via a covered walkway, was originally scheduled with Brad Paisley during 2020.

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However, COVID made a mess of live music so we got the “official opening” (Canada’s Got Talent has been taping there previously) and Joel in February 2023 instead.

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This is a performer who is known to play venues four times the size — as in his place of residency, New York City’s Madison Square Garden — so getting him at OLG Stage was a big deal and Joel mentioned off the top that his parents had honeymooned in Niagara Falls many decades ago.

He opened appropriately with My Life and ended with You May Be Right and proved to be a generous performer, giving the spotlight to his bandmates like percussionist Crystal Taliefero, who ripped through River Deep, Mountain High following Joel’s The River of Dreams, and guitarist Mike DelGuidice who bravely took on the operatic Nessun Dorma before Scenes From An Italian Restaurant.

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Joel also joked about his own vocal limitations, saying the high notes were a bigger challenge these days — “Pray for me” — but then proved himself wrong during a stellar An Innocent Man.

He wasn’t precious either about his set list, changing it up when someone from the crowd shouted out “Summer, Highland Falls!”

Joel also name-checked Lightfoot a few times, saying the Canadian singer-songwriter had inspired both Summer, Highland Falls and The Downeaster ‘Alexa,’ which he played a bit later

“You really should be seeing Gordon Lightfoot,” he joked.

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The OLG stage, which is an addition to Fallsview Casino’s already existing Avalon Ballroom (capacity: 1,500), itself was reminiscent of the Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, with four levels and great sightlines (no seat farther than 46 metres from the stage) and sharp acoustics.

All in all, a welcome new venue to southern Ontario.

SET LIST:

1. My Life
2. The Entertainer
3. Zanzibar
4. Just the Way You Are
5. Don’t Ask Me Why
6. Snippet of Start Me Up (Rolling Stones)
7. An Innocent Man
8. I’m Moving Out
9. Vienna
10. Allentown
11. Summer, Highland Falls
12. Snippet of Sundown (Gordon Lightfoot)
13. New York State of Mind
14. The Downeaster ‘Alexa’
15. Don’t Ask Me Why
16. An Innocent Man
17. Only The Good Die Young
18. The River of Dreams /River Deep Mountain High
19. Nessun Dorma
20. Scenes from An Italian Restaurant
21. The Piano Man

ENCORE

22. We Didn’t Start The Fire
23. Uptown Girl
24. Still Rock N’ Roll To Me
25. Big Shot
26. You May Be Right/Snippet of Rock And Roll (Led Zeppelin)

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