If Robert De Niro wants to call Billy Joel the “poet laureate of New York,” then it’s probably safe to say that Billy Joel is the poet laureate of New York. De Niro was at the Beacon Theatre to introduce the Tribeca Film Festival’s opening-night screening of Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin’s Billy Joel: And So It Goes. Joelaphilia was alive and well for the two-and-a-half-hour first half of the documentary, which will be accompanied by a Part Two of similar length, arriving on HBO in July. A handful of celebrities — including executive producer Tom Hanks, as well as Whoopi Goldberg and Hank Azaria — were spotted in the crowd, but mostly the room was packed with Joel fans who acted like they were at an actual Madison Square Garden show every few minutes of the screening.

The renewed fervor in Joel may be due in part to the singer’s recent health struggles. He canceled a string of upcoming concerts after being diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus, a brain disorder that causes fluid to build up in the brain, affecting his mobility, balance, and vision. The notion of a “brain disorder” is scary in and of itself, though Joel assured Howard Stern that he is “not dying.” Despite Joel’s absence from the screening last night, he told Lacy and Levin that “getting old sucks, but it’s better than being cremated.” It’s a small relief that however much fluid has built up in Joel’s brain has not disrupted his sharp, petulant sense of humor. Joel himself is present in the documentary, almost always seated behind a piano with a vape in hand, if not place nearby.

As to whether Billy Joel: And So It Goes is about his music or his life, the answer is: yes. What Billy Joel: And So It Goes argues is that Joel’s life is his music. His albums — especially the early ones — are mostly autobiographical. Piano Man’s title track is about Joel’s time as a lounge pianist in Los Angeles; Streetlife Serenade’s “The Entertainer,” on the other hand, is about how much Joel resented the popularity of “Piano Man.” A song like “You May Be Right” off his album Glass Houses, which features lyrics like “Even rode my motorcycle in the rain / And you told me not to drive / But I made it home alive” is about … well, when his ex-wife and then-manager Elizabeth Weber Small got mad at him for riding his motorcycle in the rain. It’s never been that deep with Joel’s music, but it’s never had to be. Through extensive archival footage, Lacy and Levin are able to show that Joel has always been one of the country’s best showmen. The music is good, his penchant for melody is undeniable, but what made Joel the artist we think of him as is how he is in front of a live audience. He’s hammy and energetic. Per his former Attila bandmate and longtime friend Jon Small, there’s an inherently corny quality to Joel that makes it hard not to love him.

I’ve seen Joel twice during his Madison Square Garden residency (including one of his late October shows where he serenaded a skull onstage to celebrate Halloween), and the applause in the audience after each number in Billy Joel: And So It Goes was indistinguishable from seeing him live. People go nuts for Billy Joel in New York. “Piano Man” got applause. Then “She’s Always a Woman” got applause. “New York State of Mind” got what might have tipped into a standing ovation if the documentary ended there. The enthusiasm wasn’t just about the music either — at the introduction of each other of Joel’s bandmates as talking heads in the film, the crowd went crazy. These guys are an extension of all that makes Joel great: his lifelong loyalty to them as emblematic of what’s so meaningful about this type of working-class New York City artist. He stayed true to his Long Island roots no matter what the label or a producer said. Corny as he is, Joel is consistent in who he is and what he stands for. People applauded when Joel won Grammys in the film. The excitement in the room never wavered. It was as if the audience thought if they were loud enough, Joel might be able to hear them in real life.

Related

• Billy Joel Cancels Concerts Due to Brain Disorder
• Every Billy Joel Song, Ranked
• Billy Joel on His Songwriting Silence, the Country Today, and His Ideal Farewell

 The Tribeca screening of Billy Joel: And So It Goes played like a Madison Square Garden concert.