Big Shot
After dinner, Judy and James went back to the suite -- they were spent from the day. I, on the other hand, had plans to catch the last show of Mike DelGuidice & Big Shot, a Billy Joel tribute band appearing in the Epcot “Sounds Like Summer” series. Lauren and I had seen Billy Joel in Philadelphia the summer before and I wanted to see how these guys compared to the real thing. Lauren and Marlene opted to stick with me and see the show. We walked over to the American Pavilion and staked out some seats. Then Lauren and I went to find the restrooms in the American Pavilion, leaving Marlene to hold our seats.
Here’s what Marlene was up to while I was gone -- highjacking my camera.
She was giggling and laughing after we got back and couldn’t wait for me to find that picture on my camera roll. If I recall correctly, she couldn’t contain herself and finally told me that I should look through my photos.
Soon enough, Mike DelGuidice & Big Shot came on to perform.
These guys were incredible! We loved it! Mike’s voice sounds very much like Billy’s and he could totally rock those songs without sounding like some kind of knock-off. In fact, apparently Billy Joel liked the tribute band enough that he’s put Mike in his own band. Mike now plays guitar and sings backup vocals in Billy’s performances...when he’s not performing with Big Shot, of course. (I’m sure Billy’s show schedule trumps any of the tribute band performances!) He’s on Instagram as “BillyJoelBandMemberMikeDel”.
One of his original songs, “Ordinary Guy”, is also the theme song for the Kevin James sitcom “Kevin Can Wait”. And his voice was used for a scene where someone sings the classical piece, Nessun Dorma, which is a piece that he’s often featured singing at Billy’s concerts.
We also learned during the show that Billy’s longtime saxophone player usually performs with Big Shot, but he was battling cancer and wasn’t there on this occasion. One or two of the band members had shaved their heads in solidarity (I don’t think Mike needs to shave, nature took care of that) and they were relentlessly leaning on the lead guitar player to shave his, but he just couldn’t do it.
This particular performance was their last for this run at Epcot, so they were having a lot of fun and threw in one or two requests that they received before going onstage. One of the requests was “Vienna”, which I didn’t record and immediately regretted. Such a great song.
I posted a couple of snippets of songs to Instagram and they were liked by Mike himself. I was pretty psyched about that.
We really loved this show and thought that Judy and James had missed out on something spectacular. It was a highlight of the trip for me.
After the show, we walked back to the Boardwalk. I wanted to practice my nighttime photography skills, so had Lauren and Marlene pose for me.
They went back to the suite while I checked out what this Juggler was doing on the Boardwalk, entertaining the assembled crowd.
At one point, he solved a Rubik’s cube blindfolded. How they ever got that Rubik’s cube blindfolded, I’ll never know. Ba dum bum. Anyway, it was impressive. I’ve never been able to solve one of those things fully-sighted. A friend of mine showed me how to take them apart and that’s what I’ve always done!
He was pretty happy with himself.
My last “must do” of the evening was to get a nighttime photo of the creepy clown slide, if I dared. I’ll leave you with that.
Pleasant dreams!
Up next:
The Boardwalk Ballyhoo Tour