STAGE REVIEW: The Billy Joel Songbook, at the Forum Theatre, Malvern, on Monday, September 18, 2017.

THERE’S a first time for everything and this show, starring the multi-talented Elio Pace, provided just that moment and in quite surprising circumstances.

After belting out a few early openers of easily recognisable Joel hits he paused for a brief inter-change with a sadly somewhat sparse audience, one of whom was quite critical about the sound quality.

This was an unusual turn of events for the rest of us as he was clearly in the minority of one, although maybe a couple of friends he was with agreed. But they simply sat still and said nothing.

Our ‘sound specialist’ too would have been better of keeping shtum as the rest of us clearly disagreed and made sure he knew it. Just how rude can you be when you have such musical talent on stage and one of the country’s leading sound engineers keeping track on everything.

It really was a first! It was also unacceptable and Elio Pace, who took it in his stride, was quite right to state that the interruption had been ‘quite rude’.

True the opening numbers had been noisy but that was how they were intended to be when the music and words had been written.

However, our Billy Joel tribute man and his splendid backing group, shrugged it off and provided a scintillating night of entertainment, taking us through many of Joel’s greatest hits and one or two not so well known numbers from his many LPs.

And what was just as entertaining was Pace’s rapport with the audience, apart from the obvious one, when he broke away from the songs to chat about the man and his life whose music he found so much inspiration in.

His rapport with the audience, and with his magnificently electrifying band did all that was necessary to convey the magic of Joel’s music.

You here it so often still, it is hard to realise much of it stretches back to around five decades ago but it hasn’t aged and has lost none of its appeal, its vim or even its vigour.

Pace delights with his piano playing skills, especially with Root Beer Rag. It’s a three-hours or so show, non-stop sound and action, and a top quality tour de force of some 40 Joel hits including - of course - Uptown Girl, the moving Lullaby (Goodnight My Angel), the expansive We Didn’t Start The Fire and one or two not readily recalled by everyone, including Captain Jack.

Sheer entertainment to offer the perfect riposte that lonesome complaint.