Last week, a standing-room-only crowd in Center for the Arts found out that the 25-year rock-n-roll veteran is not only a talented musician, but an endearing character, a opinionated reviewer and, it appeared, a frustrated college professor.

Joel spent nearly three hours on Mainstage April 15, fielding questions on his music, his career, his successes, his struggles, and even his former wives, including supermodel Christie Brinkley. And, he treated the crowd to some of his most popular songs, including "The Entertainer," "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," and "Piano Man," the 1974 hit for which Joel is most widely recognized.

Joel's UB visit was the latest stop on a unique six-month college campus tour. It was not a concert, nor a lecture ("Pleeze, no," Joel deadpanned, his head falling forward into the microphone.) It was more like an after-dinner discussion among a family of 2,000.

"When I was starting out, I didn't get a lot of advice," explained Joel. "I made all the mistakes you can, and I'm still here to tell the tale. I always wished there was someone I could ask." Offering aspiring performers the advice he never got is the reason for his current tour, says Joel.

Well, there may be one other reason.

"I really always wanted to be a teacher," he confessed.

"You would have been great...the best," an audience member replied, stopping Joel in mid-sentence.

"What, better than Socrates?" Joel retorted.

Joel says he has always considered himself, first and foremost, a composer. In fact, despite huge success as a recording artist, he confessed, "I don't like my voice yet. I'm just getting now to where I hate it a little less." Classical music has had the greatest impact on his work, says Joel, who is currently composing classical music. In fact, he concedes, "the stuff I'm writing now is so good, I don't dare record it myself. I'd just ruin it."

Strolling to his synthesizer, Joel interjects some little known music trivia-his words for Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

"What...Does...It...Mean?, What...Does... It...Mean?" he sang to the familiar score. He went on to share with the audience his vision of what Beethoven's MTV video for that song might have looked like.

Joel explained that he always writes the music first, drafting words that fit the tune later. Almost always, at least. "Remember this," Joel quips, as he begins the tune "We Didn't Start the Fire."

"I wrote the words first, and it sounds like a mosquito buzzing," says Joel.

Although many of Joel's hits, including "Leningrad," "Goodnight Saigon" and "Allentown," touch on social themes, Joel insists he is not an activist musician.

"Left wing, Right wing, Buffalo wing-it doesn't matter to me," said Joel. "I just write about people: 'Allentown' was about unemployed people, 'Goodnight Saigon' was about some of my own buddies who went to Vietnam."

In case you're interested in having a "bottle of red" or a "bottle of white" in the restaurant from "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," as one questioner was, it is named for Rome's Trevi Fountain and is located at 151 W. 57th Street in New York City, directly across from Carnegie Hall. "If you want to go see it for nostalgia, fine," Joel cautioned, "but the food, as far as I remember...it was only so-so."

"I got turned down by everyone three times when I was 19 and 20 years old," Joel admitted to one aspiring performer. Joel advised anyone poised to sign a contract themselves, "First, go hire a lawyer to advise you. Second, go hire another lawyer to watch the first lawyer." Joel has had his share of legal and managerial difficulties over the years, including being sued on several occasions by fans who submitted songs to him.

"Next thing you know, I get this letter from a lawyer saying, 'There is an extraordinary likeness between your use of the word 'the' and our client's," Joel bristled, "so we are suing you for all you're worth."

Joel advised budding songwriters to copyright their works and surprised some by advising students looking to break into the business to go south, not west.

"Nashville is now the center of songwriting in America," Joel declared. "And it's not the old, twangy Country and Western music I remember. It's open to all kinds of music. There are real opportunities there for pop stuff."

Answering a questioner who sat high atop the Mainstage balcony, Joel explained that he started a tradition at his concerts 12 years ago of refusing to sell the front couple rows of seats.

"It started at Christmas time. I would send the crew up to the worst seats in the house and have them give away the front row tickets," Joel explained.

"Of course, you have to realize this was in Madison Square Garden. In New York, when some guy in a Santa suit offers front row tickets, he gets a lot of 'Ya, buddy, whatta I gotta do for theez?' But, eventually, they figured it out and came down." These fans, Joel found, were so excited and grateful that their enthusiasm enhanced his performance.

So, Joel has continued the tradition right through last summer's tour with his good friend, Elton John. Although a sea of hands would go up each time Joel sought another questioner, one woman quickly caught his attention by calling out "Dr. Joel, Dr. Joel." Joel is particularly proud of earning two honorary doctorates in music, even though he never finished high school. She asked, "Whatever happened to Brenda and Eddie?"

"Brenda and Eddie," Joel fans remember, were "the King and Queen of the Prom," featured in his song, "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant." They were drawn, roughly, from a popular couple Joel had envied growing up on Long Island. A few years back, Joel went to his 20th high school class reunion...to catch up on "Brenda and Eddie."

"See, I couldn't make it to my ten-year reunion," the high school dropout explained, "I was doing Saturday Night Live that night." But, at the 20th reunion, Joel was reunited with the popular couple. "Let me tell ya; Eddie was, like, old and all shriveled up," he chuckled, "And, Brenda, forget about it, man. She didn't look good."

What he did notice about his classmates, however, was 'the nerds.' "They were all the successful ones now, with the beautiful wives. It was very surreal."