“Stop lighting the audience.” In 1987 Billy Joel, his family, and his full touring band, played six shows in the Soviet Union, three each in Moscow and Leningrad. Joel was one of the first American rock artists to play there since the Berlin Wall went up. To offset the cost of the trip, the concert and tour were being filmed for TV and videoand the concerts were simulacast on radio around the world. In the first Moscow show, there were a number of members of the Communist party in the audience who received tickets from the government as a perk. As a result, the audience took awhile to warm up to him and his energetic show - something that had not happened in any of the other contries he played. There was a minor international incident when Joel, showing his frustration with the audience and lighting crew, famously flipped over an electric keyboard, and also yelled, mid-song, to his stage crew, during the second Moscow show. Joel was frustrated that his lighting engineers seemed more concerned with the amount of light needed for the filming of the video and TV show, then they did for the privacy of the audience. “These people are watched enough” Joel says.

Interview clips and performance:

In 1999, Bill Joel was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame and joined the ranks of the most talented musicians and accomplished songwriters. Here’s Billy Joel performing The Stranger:

Official site