The Bridge Tour (26 Jul 1987 Jahr – 5 Aug 1987 Jahr)

Beschreibung:

In 1986 Billy Joel was invited to perform in the Soviet Union the following year, 1987. Joel took advantage of this opportunity to be a musical ambassador. He was seen as a "nice, safe, first attempt at bringing in an American 'pop star.'

The tour of the Soviet Union consisted of six shows, three in Moscow and three in Leningrad. Joel brought his family with him to show the Russians that he felt safe and trusted the Russian people.

Prior to this show, rock music was barely gaining ground in the Soviet Union. The implementation of Gorbachev's glasnost allowed people of the Soviet Union to witness Western rock. As a result, the government had to learn how to put on concerts, while the people of Russia had to learn how to participate in them. Joel's Russian tour was the first live rock radio broadcast in Soviet history. Joel and his band were one of the first Western rock groups to perform in Russia, along with John Denver, Elton John, James Taylor, and Santana.

During the second of the three concerts performed in Moscow at the Olympic Sports Complex, Joel flipped his electric piano and broke his microphone stand on his grand piano. While performing "Sometimes a Fantasy", the audience kept getting attention from spotlights, which angered Joel as he felt it was making it harder to connect with them, because crowd members on whom lights shone would suddenly become silent and still. He yelled, "Stop lighting the audience!" He then trashed his instruments, overturning his piano and breaking his mic stand; neither he nor the band stopped performing despite this. He later claimed that "People like their privacy. They go to a concert to get that, to be in the dark and do their own thing."

Joel crowd-surfed during his performances. While in Leningrad, Billy dove into the crowd during the performance of "The Longest Time". This was another way for him to show that he trusted the Russian people. Each time the song "Honesty" was performed, he dedicated the song to Vladimir Vysotsky, because he was an inspirational Russian man who "spoke the truth."

While in Russia, Billy Joel and his daughter Alexa met and became friends with a clown named Viktor. The song "Leningrad" would eventually be written about him. This song was released on the 1989 Storm Front album.

Joel went on to say "The trip to Russia was probably the biggest highlight for me as a performer. I met these people and they weren't the enemy. I also hoped that the people in America could see what we did. What happens when your kid says to you 'what did you do in the Cold War, Daddy?' And now we have something to say."

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