Billy Joel delights at Dodger Stadium with a show packed with hits and guest stars, too

“It’s a pretty good crowd for a Saturday,” Billy Joel sang during “Piano Man,” the last song of the main set at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on, yes, Saturday, and the crowd cheered, prompting Joel to flash a quick smile in return.

But it’s the rest of that verse — the bit where the manager of the piano bar in Joel’s signature song acknowledges that the customers are there to see him sing and “forget about life for a while” — that really captured the joyful nature of the night.

Because over 2 1/2 hours and nearly 30 songs — a terrific show that included guest appearances by singer Pink and Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses — it was easy to forget about the trials and travails of real life and instead sing along to songs about big shots and uptown girls and all the other characters who’ve populated the songs this 67-year-old entertainer has written over the years.

The night opened with “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song),” one of five numbers drawn from 1977’s “The Stranger,” his breakthrough into critical and commercial success — it’s still his all-time best-selling studio album — and the crowd that filled Dodger Stadium was on its feet, singing the story of Anthony and Mama Leone and the rest of the gang from the old neighborhood.

As Joel played a bit of Bach’s “Ode to Joy” as an intro to “My Life,” a hit from 1978, his grand piano slowly rotated so that instead of facing left field he was facing right in the stadium where his boyhood team from Brooklyn settled decades ago.

“So this is where the Dodgers ended up?” he said at the close of that number. “They used to play at Ebbets Field. Then they left and I became a freakin’ Yankees fan.”

The crowd booed and Joel grinned, continuing to talk about how overwhelmed he felt to be playing the stadium all these years after his early days in L.A. playing piano bars, and eventually clubs such as the Troubadour.

The city where the Long Island transplant struggled in his early days as a musician was a focus throughout the night, as Joel shared stories about seeing his now good friend Elton John at Dodger Stadium in the ’70s “when he had that Donald Duck outfit on,” or of living in a friend’s home in Malibu Canyon and dreaming about scoring a Western, an idea that only came to fruition as the song “The Ballad of Billy the Kid,” which he performed early in the set.

“I was still living here when I wrote this song,” he noted by way of introducing “The Entertainer.” “I was wrong when I wrote it, I was cynical. But I like to do this one because it reminds me what an (annoying person) I was.”

Joel hasn’t released an album of new songs since 1993’s “River of Dreams” so there wasn’t an unfamiliar song in the set Saturday, though he did dip into past albums for less-obvious choices, sometimes letting the audience pick, as he did when he asked whether they’d rather hear “Just the Way You Are” — a huge single off “The Stranger” — or “Vienna” — an album track, which by applause (or Joel’s whim, who can really know?) was then played.

For the jazzy ballad “New York State of Mind” Joel brought out the singer Pink to perform, the two of them trading verses, Pink leaning on Joel’s piano as this early highlight of the night unfolded. She then stayed onstage to sing her own hit “Try” while Joel took a quick break off stage.

After a few more numbers, including the ballad “She’s Always a Woman,” the night’s second guest, Axl Rose, arrived on stage to sing AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” — didn’t see that coming did you? — while Joel played guitar down by the front row of fans.

“River of Dreams” came with a mid-song interlude of the Eagles’ “Take It Easy” — Joel typically drops in a song from a significant local act —  before he wrapped things up with “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant,” a pop song in three movements, and “Piano Man,” which had a deafening chorus of practically everyone in the stadium singing along.

There are, of course, some music fans who put down Joel — he’s arrogant and full of himself, he’s corny and sentimental — and you may know some of them. But what they’re missing is that in his heart he’s an old-fashioned show, an entertainer who’s there to show you a good time.

The encore, which added five songs to the night, drove home that point in quick order. “Uptown Girl” opened it up with its upbeat doo-wop vocal harmonies. Rose came out again to sing “Big Shot,” one of the harder-rocking numbers in Joel’s catalog, and while he seemed a little hesitant in the lyrics it was nonetheless a fun run through that song.

And while most of this crowd had been singing along throughout the night, the final pairing of “Only the Good Die Young” and “You May Be Right” surely had everyone on their feet, belting out the choruses.

Having fun, and there’s no need to apologize for enjoying that.

Billy Joel

Where: Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles

When: May 13

Main set

Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song) / My Life / Your Song (Elton John abbreviated cover) / Vienna
(fans choice over Just the Way You Are) / Zanzibar / The Entertainer / The Lion Sleeps Tonight (the Tokens cover) / The Longest Time (fans choice over An Innocent Man) / The Magnificent Seven Theme (Elmer Bernstein cover) / The Ballad of Billy the Kid / Don’t Ask Me Why / New York State of Mind (with Pink) / Try (Pink song sung by Pink) / Allentown / She’s Always a Woman / Say Goodbye to Hollywood / Sometimes a Fantasy / Highway to Hell (AC/DC cover with Axl Rose) / We Didn’t Start the Fire / The River of Dreams (With the Eagles’ Take It Easy) / Nessun Dorma (Giacomo Puccini cover sung by guitarist Mike DelGuidice) / Scenes From an Italian Restaurant / Piano Man

Encore

Uptown Girl / It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me / Big Shot (with Axl Rose) / Only the Good Die Young / You May Be Right