People are still talking about Billy Joel's recent Mother's Day weekend appearance in downtown Huntington. On May 10th, 2008, he drove his Harley into town and stopped at Cassis. He sat outside the French bistro on Wall Street and had a drink with a friend. Later that weekend, he took his mother, Rosalind Nyman Joel - who, according to public records, lives in Huntington in a house her son purchased for $248,000 in 1984 - for a Mother's Day dinner at the more traditional Abel Conklins on New Street. Joel owns a house in Centre Island, which is now on the market for $32.5 million, as well as homes in Sagaponack and Sag Harbor.

In those days, record stores consisted of bin after bin after bin of vinyl LPs, alphabetically. You would stand and flip through the records. Flip, flip, flip.

On that day in 1977, I purchased my first album. Billy Joel's "The Stranger." I played it literally to its death.

There are millions of people out there like me. From 1977 to 1985, "The Stranger" was Columbia Records' biggest selling album. It is those people Mohegan Sun was counting on when it booked Joel for an unprecedented 10 sold-out shows in its Arena this spring and summer. And nearly 10,000 of them were very happy to help the 59 year-old legend kick things off Friday night.

Other than two dates at Shea Stadium in late July, the Mohegan Sun dates are Joel's only appearances in the Northeast. And while there is a 30th anniversary special edition release of "The Stranger" out, he really doesn't have anything to sell. If Friday night's show is any indication, he is using this run in Uncasville as a beautiful retrospective.

It's not so much a greatest hits collection that Joel and his ridiculously talented band presented in just under two hours, it's more of a gathering of his greatest songs.

He opened with the dramatic "Prelude/Angry Young Man," from 1976's "Turnstiles." The lights were worked beautifully into the intensity of this song, which lasted 8 minutes. Unfortunately, the sound was bad, and the band drowned out Joel's vocals throughout. They got that snafu fixed quickly, however, which is good because Joel was in fine voice (he wasn't taking any chances either, regularly spraying his throat with something).

A neat trick was having video cameras on the piano's keyboard, so concert-goers could watch the master at work. Or at least some concert-goers. There was only one giant screen, and it was positioned from the ceiling, about halfway back, leaving lots of folks with no close-up shots.

Dressed casually in jeans, a T-Shirt and a sport coat, Joel segued immediately into "My Life," from 1978's "52nd Street." He took a few minutes after that to chat up the crowd before hitting 1975's "The Entertainer," a cynical look at the recording industry that more than 30 years later still rings true.

A salute to the recession followed, with "The Downeaster Alexa," about the dying fishing industry, followed by "Allentown," about the death of the steel industry.

Then came some cliches about Connecticut and a Yankee/Red Sox monologue that ended with the philosophical, "These days, I just like a good game." "Zanzibar" followed that, highlighted by some amazing solos by his very talented horn players.

As American singer/songwriters go, few have had careers as enduring and endearing as Billy Joel. There's a reason for that: few have earned it like he has.

Sure, the 59 year-old New York icon has hit some personal lows in the latter half of his 40-year-plus musical stint...so what? Besides a few forgivable missteps, his catalogue is one of astounding consistency - which was glaringly evident during the first of 10 shows at Mohegan Sun Friday night.

Joel's entrance was stately: his piano rose from beneath a stage cloaked in darkness while the majestic sound of brass and strings swelled over the PA system. When the lights came up he crouched over the keys and pounded out "Prelude/Angry Young Man," an arguably autobiographical signature tune. The slow-to-fill sold-out house magically packed once the music began.

Joel's character study continued with "My Life" and "The Entertainer," while his five-piece band (periodically expanded to seven) chugged dutifully along. Despite a slightly garbled sound mix, the Long Island native came across as calm, confident and capable. True, his voice is weathered on the edges, but the aged nuances of his vibrato are, for the most part, quite becoming.

The good stuff kept coming: the hooks that made "Allentown" a radio staple have retained their power; the baseball-themed "Zanzibar" was rife with delicious jazzy nuances, and Carl Fischer's powerhouse horn solo was an adventurous delight. "New York State of Mind" triumphed with Mark Rivera's expressive sax, and "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" featured Rivera, Fischer and percussion madwoman Crystal Taliefero on a charged, triple-sax finish. The alternating youthful tension and release portrayed in "Captain Jack" was no less poignant despite the songs (and Joel's) age.

There were no fussy backdrops, laser beams or projected film images. And there didn't need to be: Joel and his songs require no secondary stimulation. Even when he stepped away from the piano to play guitar while a roadie nicknamed Chainsaw belted out AC/DC's "Highway To Hell," Joel's focus was maintained, even if the stunt seemed unnecessary (although not too badly rendered, truth told).

Joel's encores of the suite-like "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" and "Piano Man" were enough to make even the most stoic attendees go limp with misty-eyed sentimentality, serving as proof of the power in his carefully chosen words. Less time-ravaged than fellow piano god Sir Elton John and more accessible than the ever-rustic Bruce Springsteen, Joel's made an indelible contribution to American musical culture. Friday's performance was further confirmation that he's in a class by himself. Chances are the angry young man likes it that way.