Since they first hooked up in 1994, Elton John and Billy Joel have always toured under the guise of equal partners.

But like anything else in life, there's no such thing as total equality: Mr. Joel may have turned in the more spirited set of the two Friday night at the sold-out American Airlines Center, but it was no match for Sir Elton's soulful singing, wicked piano work and storied songbook.

The two began the marathon show together, but Mr. John had the edge from the start. His elegant ballads "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" and "Your Song" made Mr. Joel's "Just The Way You Are" seem schmaltzy by comparison.

After the "Piano Man" left, Mr. John and his well-oiled backing quintet had the stage to themselves for the next 75 minutes and fired up the classic-rock jukebox: Tight, driving rockers like "Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" and "Saturday Night's Alright (for Fighting)" gave a perfect balance to such gentler gems as "Tiny Dancer" and "Someone Saved My Life Tonight."

At times, Sir Elton and his crew seemed a bit too tight. "Take Me To The Pilot" was autopilot all the way.

Yet there were some thrilling curveballs as well, like the rollicking blues of "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore" (from 2001's "Songs From The West Coast") and a 10-minute overhaul of "Rocket Man" that featured the evening's wildest piano solos: After bridging the gap between Bach and Vince Guaraldi, he charged into some manic New Orleans bordello boogie.

After Mr. John left the stage, Mr. Joel came back and began rhapsodizing about vino in "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" - an odd choice for a set starter, considering the singer's stint in alcohol rehab recently. Several other tunes in his set hadn't aged well, particularly "Prelude/Angry Young Man" and "Allentown."

But even if his repertoire didn't quite stack up with Mr. John's, the crowd seemed to be more into Mr. Joel. Thousands of fans actually got off their keisters during large stretches of his set, which you couldn't say about Mr. John's segment.

Chalk it up to the affability factor. Sir Elton rarely addressed the crowd and seemed a tad aloof. But his touring mate rocked the house with his mike-stand acrobatics (in "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me") and played the role of regular ol' joe – bantering between songs with a salty vocabulary, launching into "Deep In The Heart of Texas" and thanking fans for shelling out big bucks for even the nosebleed seats: "For the money you're paying us, we should be doing your windows."

On paper, the pairing of Elton John and Billy Joel is a meeting of equals, two of pop music's most famous and successful piano players.

But that wasn't how it worked out Friday night at American Airlines Center. Joel clearly stole the show right out from under his British counterpart.

Joel, wearing a dark, sober suit, and John, more flamboyant in a red, white and blue cowboy hat, met center stage and hugged shortly before 8pm.

They began with a duet on three songs - "Your Song," "Just The Way You Are" and "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me." And from the beginning, Joel's voice was richer and more expressive. John's vocals were somewhat flat and uninspired.

In a 75-minute set that followed, John was at best solid, but more than a few times, he was a notch or two less than that. He has apparently lost much of the upper register in his voice; on "Rocket Man," for example, he did not even attempt to hit the high notes in the chorus.

This is not to say that John's set was terrible. It wasn't. But much of the time, he seemed to be on auto-pilot.

There were some exceptions, such as the gospelish "Take Me To The Pilot." But overall, John's performance was only fair.

Joel's set, on the other hand, had a snap and a feistiness that reminded me of his concerts of 20 years ago.

He and his band took the stage just a few minutes after John's set ended. And from the opening number, "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant," his voice and his band were displaying far more punch than did John.

The sound was better and crisper. Also, Joel was simply more engaging, bantering with the crowd and throwing a snippet of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" into "The River of Dreams."

Other highlights of his set included "I Go To Extremes" and "Allentown."

Together again. "Face 2 Face." Piano to piano. Voice to voice.

The reviews are in and ticket sales are good. What worked wonders in 1994 when Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Billy Joel and Elton John first joined forces on the road is working wonderfully again.

The "Piano Man" and "Captain Fantastic" return on Tuesday to Conseco Fieldhouse, where they last teamed up on March 31st, 1995.

Joel is known for hits such as "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me," "New York State of Mind" and "Just The Way You Are." John has topped the charts with "Candle In The Wind," "Crocodile Rock" and "Philadelphia Freedom."

As on previous tours, Joel and John are singing a few duets and then breaking away to do their own solo sets, backed by stellar bands. Most of the shows are lasting more than three hours.

This will be the third appearance for both performers at Conseco. Joel performed there in December 1999 to a near sell-out at 15,900. John's most recent local appearance was in April 2000. Attendance was 14,500.

There were a few uptown girls who met composer and back-street guy Billy Joel Saturday night. After the Junior League Ball, many of the blue-blooded leaguers piled into the bar at The Mansion on Turtle Creek. Billy was still staying at the hotel following his Friday night crowd-pleaser at American Airlines Center with co-headliner Elton John .

Around midnight, Billy was in a never-met-a-stranger mood in the Mansion bar, where he happily chatted with various patrons and autographed a few napkins.

Billy's recent travails - last summer's voluntary stint in rehab followed by his January 25th, 2003 hospitalization after a one-car mauling of a tree in Sag Harbor, NY - have left him with fewer hairs on top of his head, but he more than compensates for it with his new Hans-and-Franz upper body. At the Mansion, he looked like a one-man wrecking crew in his jeans and black shirt that accentuated his truly massive biceps, triceps and pecs.

Apparently charmed by Dallas - "Where else can I play with Elton John and make so much money?" he quipped at the Mansion - he was confused by one thing. During his show, he improvised a tune on the piano that no one seemed to recognize. "You don't know 'Big D'?" he asked the crowd incredulously before singing the chorus, "Big D, little A, double L, A, S."

After taking their road show to arenas for nine years, Billy Joel and Elton John on Sunday night finally brought their magic show to Oklahoma City.

Two pianos rose to the Ford Center stage, bringing the sold-out crowd of 18,000 to its feet in thundering anticipation of Joel and John.

The pair took the stage and launched into John's classic "Your Song."

Billy Joel and Elton John began their "Face 2 Face" Tour Friday February 21st, 2003 at the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center.

With the BJCC nearly full, Joel and John held a battle of the pianos. Joel came onto the stage at 8pm, followed by John wearing a bright blue suit with matching blue shoes. They hugged and sat down at separate pianos facing one another. They began the evening with John's "Your Song" featured in "Moulin Rouge." Joel's "Just The Way You Are" was played by the two of them as well. Joel's piano lowered off the stage and left John to sing on his own. John performed a rendition of "Rocket Man," "Crocodile Rock" and "I Want Love."

"Some man came up and asked us if we wanted to sit on the second row," Carrie Tate and Amber Stanley said. "We were like 'sure.' He told us that each concert Elton John buys so many front row tickets and gives them to fans."

John did not say much between songs but there was interaction with the crowd. The first three rows rushed the stage when John began, and he would walk around slapping their hands between many of the songs. John sang "Tiny Dancer" as his last song and got the crowd excited for Joel’s entrance.

Joel came out starting with "The River of Dreams." Halfway through the song the band stopped and started Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama."

With the crowd singing loud, the band jumped right back into "The River of Dreams." After the song Joel said he had not played in Birmingham in about 25 years.

Joel also sang "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me," "New York State of Mind," "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant," and many other great hits.

"Billy Joel's band was more entertaining and diverse than Elton John’s band," Buddy Brannon said. "They [Joel's band] had saxophones, symbols, and other interesting instruments," he added.

After their separate concerts, Joel and John returned to the stage to sing together. They sang John's "Bennie and The Jets." Joel said they couldn't get out of a piano concert without singing Jerry Lee Louis' "Great Balls of Fire" so they sang a portion of that and The Beatles' "A Hard Day’s Night."

They left the stage while the crowd cheered for five minutes waiting for their return. They came back after a standing ovation and just the two of them sang Joel's "Piano Man." During the last chorus, the "Piano Men" stopped and the crowd sang to them. The battle ended a stalemate because the two showed equal talent.

It's a monster of a match made for boomers reared on arena rock and weary of lame warm-up acts, long intermissions and indiscernible lyrics. This show, which played to a near sell-out audience of 16,500 Tuesday night at Conseco Fieldhouse, had none of that, plus three headliners - Joel, John and the two of them together.

Comparisons are inevitable; the tour's title - "Face 2 Face" - invites them. Ever since Joel and John joined forces in 1994, a trail of reviews comparing the two Rock and Roll Hall of Famers has followed. One sings better. One plays better. One is feisty and chatty (Joel). One is more proper and doesn't say much (John).

Who cares, really? Call it a draw with the real winners being those who bought tickets - even those $47 seats behind the stage, the ones Joel called "shit."

The producers declined to discuss the submission - campaigning for a Pulitzer in pubic is considered tacky and almost always backfires.

But Pulitzer sources say the script is impressive and that the selection committee is seriously considering the entry.

The "Movin' Out" "script" is unusual since the show is told through dance and Joel's lyrics. At one point, sources say, the producers considered submitting just the lyrics, but decided they needed something meatier.

So they came up with a booklet blending photographs, lyrics and plot synopsis.

The left-hand pages feature photos illustrating the ballet, scene by scene. The right-hand pages consist of Joel's lyrics, printed alongside a plot synopsis written by Tharp.

How do you like your piano man? Friday night at the Mellon Arena, uptown, you'll have your choice.

In one corner, England's Elton John, nee Reg Dwight, 55, known for flamboyant outfits and fancy eyeglasses, and some pretty good pop music. Some career highlights: "Your Song," "Rocket Man" and "Candle In The Wind," through some surprisingly good tunes the past few years, notably "I Want Love" and "This Train Don't Stop There No More."

At the other "Baby Grand," (William) Billy Joel, born on Long Island in 1949. His musical accomplishments are many - although average-looking guys everywhere still laud him for successfully wooing supermodel Christie Brinkley. There's "Piano Man," "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me" and "We Didn't Start The Fire," the latter his last certifiable blockbuster hit single.

If you're a fan of either man, you probably already have tickets. Good thing, because the 7:30pm show is sold-out.

The lights go down on the capacity crowd inside Broadway's Richard Rodgers Theatre.

Spotlights reveal a 10-piece band poised on a large platform surrounded by what looks like a chain-link fence. Suddenly, the platform begins to rise toward the lighting rig high above the stage, and the band kicks into a loud, clinical and precise version of Billy Joel's "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me." An entire company of dancers takes the stage, offering a balletic interpretation of the '50s-like rock anthem.

For the next two hours, theatre-goers are treated to a two-act, dance-based interpretation of songs from Joel's 30-year canon. A plot emerges, based on the characters Joel created in his 1977 song suite, "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant," culled from "The Stranger" album.

Conceived, choreographed and directed by Twyla Tharp, "Movin' Out" is an exuberant tour de force of what might well be called "rock ballet." Tharp, well-known for her choreography collaborations with everyone from Mikhail Baryshnikov to Philip Glass, brings the poetry of motion to Joel's music. Making the play was a risky endeavor. But it works.

That's right. Billy Joel has gone Broadway.

Not Fade Away

Billboard magazine recently noted that Billy Joel and Elton John's "Face 2 Face" Tour, which comes Sunday to HSBC Arena and has found the pair performing around the world over the past several years, is one of the biggest-grossing concert tours in history.

What makes this particularly noteworthy is the fact that both musicians have officially "retired" from the rock business - Joel to concentrate on classical compositions for piano; John to write for the stage and screen and to concentrate his energies on his work with AIDS charities.

Yet there they'll be Sunday evening, poised with pianos facing each other, before what is sure to be a huge and enthusiastic crowd, performing a selection of hits from throughout their combined 60 years as two of pop music's greatest and most beloved songwriters.

So how have these two managed to survive for all these years in a music business dedicated to a constant turnover of "next big things"?

You Can't Fire Me - I Quit

John released his last studio album, "Songs From The West Coast," some two years ago. The critical buzz defined it as the best thing he'd done in decades. It sold rather poorly, however, and soon, John would publicly claim that he'd never release another album, due to his "disgust with the music business."

Joel released his "Fantasies & Delusions" on the Sony Classical label in 2001.

Beginning in 1996, Joel dropped several hints during interviews that he was finished with pop-music and would concentrate on classical works from that point forward. Joel's last rock album came in the form of "River of Dreams," released in 1993.

The Faces of "The Stranger"

Joel has been having a rough go of it of late. It seems one can't open the paper without reading of his personal problems.

In January, he wrapped his Mercedes-Benz around a tree on Long Island while driving home from a dinner where the New York Post says companions saw him drinking. He suffered minor injuries and no charges were filed.

Last June, Joel checked himself into a Connecticut rehabilitation center to deal with what his handlers called a "personal problem." Earlier that year, he'd crashed his car into a fire wall. Again, his injuries were minor.

A short while later, he was quoted in a New York paper as being "lonely and looking for someone to share my life with," in what seemed to amount to a high-level personal ad. The tabloids had a field day with that one.

Prior to all of this, in the mid-'90s, Joel endured a very public divorce from wife Christie Brinkley and sued his former manager, who had reportedly swindled millions out of the singer. (Joel outlined this situation with venomous power on the brilliant "Great Wall of China" from "River of Dreams.")

Sue Me, Sue You Blues

Near the end of the '90s, Elton John sued the company run by his former manager and lover John Reid over touring expenses and financial mismanagement.

The case dragged on for several months in London's courts, but John ultimately lost the lawsuit.

Like Joel, John has also entered the world of theatrical music, although more directly. He collaborated with Tim Rice on an updating of "Aida," which he described at the time as "very camp." John has also written for the screen, most notably Disney's "The Lion King."

His charity work for AIDS garnered him the title "Sir Elton." (Proceeds from his single "Candle In The Wind," dedicated to the then recently deceased Princess Diana, went to AIDS organizations.) The song was originally written for Marilyn Monroe; its "updating" led Rolling Stone Keith Richards to proclaim that John did nothing but "write songs for dead blond birds."

Assessing The Legacies

Even a cursory look back on the careers of these two songwriters clearly posits Joel as the superior artist.

John's output in the 1980s and '90s was disappointingly bland and overtly directionless.

Though "Songs From The West Coast" represented a high point for John, prior to its release, the "Honky Cat" hadn't offered us a truly remarkable album in decades. The cornerstone of his recording career remains the remarkable "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," an album recorded some 30 years ago.

Joel, on the other hand, has never made a bad record.

As a songwriter, he is in the upper echelons of the post-Beatles rock world. His ability to blend the Tin Pan Alley leanings of Paul McCartney with the biting wit and inventive compositional ethic of Lennon produced a remarkable string of diverse hits: the folk-centered music hall of "Piano Man," the pop of "Allentown," the doo-wop-based grandeur of "River of Dreams," the classical-tinged "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)," the elegant, jazz-informed beauty of "New York State of Mind," the skewered genius of "The Stranger."

But Joel certainly has his critics. He told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1998 that he has always confounded critics because of his desire to delve into various genres, based on the fact that "I like all kinds of music, and therefore, I write all kinds of music." But aside from the decidedly weak and often misguided production approaches of his records, he is difficult to criticize.

Of course, when it comes down to it, Joel and John are playing to audiences more than likely are completely satisfied to hear them act as living and breathing jukeboxes. There are certainly enough hit songs for the pair to choose from.

The Joel Show

Since opening last year, "Movin' Out" has played to full houses and received favorable reviews.

Surprisingly, Joel had little to do with the show, aside from penning the songs that comprise its thematic flow. The legend among Broadway scenesters has it that Twyla Tharp conceived and developed the show before ever contacting Joel. "Movin' Out" was complete, but Tharp knew that without Joel's cooperation, she wouldn't get the necessary funding.

He attended a dress rehearsal, was supposedly blown away by it and gave Tharp his full blessing.

Tharp was able to successfully create a story line based on 23 of Joel's songs. It's a bittersweet affair offering commentary on the deep effect the Vietnam War had on a generation.

The tale begins with the adolescence of three high school buddies, Eddie (John Selya), Tony (Keith Roberts) and James (Benjamin G. Bowman). In summer 1965, these three are concerned only with the thrills of teen life, most notably, their desire to hook up with Brenda (Elizabeth Parkinson) and Judy (Ashley Tuttle). Things become a bit more complex when they enlist and are immediately shuttled to the front lines. One friend dies. The other two are left to return home and attempt to reconstruct their shattered American dream.

Billy Joel and Elton John probably won't be releasing new studio albums anytime soon. In the meantime, here's my recommendations for essential listening from both artists.

Joel
"The Stranger," 1977 (Columbia). This remains Billy Joel's masterpiece, an album of remarkably varied, timeless pop-music.

What was touching about the album is that Joel cast back, way back, into history for his cues. "Waltz No. 1" sounded like the 19th Century composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Other brief compositions could remind a listener of, in turn, Chopin, Bach and Schumann. It seemed Joel was thinking of music for a small, intimate setting - quite a change for a man used to playing big, heavily amplified arenas.

The extent of Joel's aptitude in classical composition remains something of a mystery. The cruelly brief liner notes to "Fantasies & Delusions" credited different people for "music preparation" and "additional arrangements." It was, however, interesting at the time to note where his heart was.

Anyone who doubts Joel's regard for the old masters need only listen to "Fantasies & Delusions"; Joel's sincerity is evident. The pop pianist has said that he had an epiphany while listening to Beethoven symphonies. "I let these symphonies pound over me," he explained. "Last time I felt like this was the first time I listened to Led Zeppelin. I felt puny. I am nothing, I am insignificant."

Billy Joel rocked.

Those are three words that haven't gone together in a long time - if ever - but they applied last night at the Mellon Arena where the "Piano Man" met the "Rocket Man" and soared past him.

Not that we need to compare them, because, of course, Billy Joel and Elton John have both earned their spots in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

They stopped by on another "Face 2 Face" Tour with a break-free show that went on longer than "Gone With The Wind."

It began with two pianos rising out of the floor and then the gimmicks stopped there. John was the one in the black and purple sequined suit with the hairpiece. Joel was in the stark black suit and bare head. They traded verses on a beautiful version of "Your Song," each sounding almost like the other on the vocals.

Joel introduced "Just The Way You Are" as "a song I wrote for my first ex-wife," then let John do the opening verse. John, in turn, introduced "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" as "a song I wrote for my second ex-husband," and part way into it, Elton's band kicked in, setting the stage for his part of the show.

They quickly raised the ghost of '70s album-rock with "Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding,"