Billy Joel on the 'magic' and 'crazy crowds' of Madison Square Garden ahead of final show
In March, Billy Joel played the 100th show of a residency that began in January 2014.
His feeling a decade ago was, I’ll keep showing up every month or so as long as the demand continues.
Demand responded. Mightily.
For more than 10 years – excepting the inevitable COVID pause in 2020 – Joel and his airtight band led tens of thousands through singalongs of “Piano Man” and “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” sold nearly 2 million tickets and reaffirmed Madison Square Garden as the live music cathedral of the world.
On July 25, he’ll say goodbye (not to Hollywood) to the most successful residency this side of Celine Dion.
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“I’m gonna miss doing it a lot,” he told USA TODAY in April during an interview about the CBS special to commemorate his 100th residency performance. “I love it. The band loves it. The crowd is a New York-crazy crowd. The minute you walk onstage you’re aware they’re rooting for you. The only way you could mess up that gig is to try to screw it up.”
Joel’s final residency show will air (not live) exclusively on SiriusXM’s The Billy Joel Channel (79), which is back through Aug. 15. Joel noted that he hadn’t wrangled any special guests yet – Sting joined him for the March show that aired on CBS – but there was “all kinds of scuttlebutt, so I’m assuming someone will be there.”
Joel’s representative confirmed that any potential pop-up performers will remain a surprise.
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Billy Joel says playing Madison Square Garden is ‘magic’
Joel, 75, first played MSG in 1978, shortly after the release of “The Stranger,” which catapulted him to superstardom with FM standards including “Just the Way You Are,” “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song),” “Only the Good Die Young” and the aforementioned live darling, “Scenes …”
His final residency show dovetails with his 150th overall performance at the venue he describes as “magic” not only because of its repute – “No one knows where you’re playing in Kansas City or San Francisco, but when you do the Garden, the whole world knows it,” he says – but also because of the venue’s actual construction.
“The building is on springs,” he says of the spring-loaded floor stationed above the ice for hockey games. “So when the crowd stomps in unison, it actually moves the building. We’re going up and down on stage like, 'Whoa, they’re literally rocking the house.' ”
Where else is Billy Joel performing in 2024?
But Joel’s farewell to a standing set of shows in no way equates to retirement.
As he told Willie Geist on NBC’s “Sunday Today” last week, the conclusion of his MSG contract means he can return to other venues in the New York area and specifically mentioned Yankee Stadium, Citi Field (home of the Mets) and MetLife Stadium in northern New Jersey. He’s also adamant that the final residency performance doesn’t mean he won’t ever play MSG again.
Joel, who throughout his 10-year MSG run spiked his schedule with stadium shows both solo and with fellow megastar co-headliners such as Stevie Nicks and Sting, already has several dates checked on the calendar for the rest of 2024, including a stadium show with Rod Stewart Sept. 13 in Cleveland, a solo gig at the new Intuit Dome in Los Angeles Oct. 12 and three co-headlining dates with Sting: Sept. 27 in St. Louis, Oct. 25 in San Antonio and Nov. 9 in Las Vegas.
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Is that Billy Joel on the LIRR? Maybe.
Fans attending the final residency show at MSG and arriving via public transportation might want to keep an eye out for an unassuming guy in jeans and a baseball cap. It’s a description that fits a hefty batch of riders, which is exactly the point.
Earlier this year, Joel mentioned in an interview with Newsday that he ditched his helicopter rides to MSG – “One day it occurred to me that maybe this isn’t the most stable aircraft in the world. Maybe you’re pushing it,” he told USA TODAY of his then 15-minute commute – and hopped on the Long Island Railroad instead.
Though his inner circle dissuaded him from cramming among the public and expressed concern he would be recognized and mobbed by fans, Joel shrugged off the trepidation with typical nonchalance.
“I said, ‘No one will notice me. No one will think I could possibly be on the train.’ And that’s exactly what happened,” he says. “We have a cop friend who was going to meet me at Jamaica station where I changed trains and I said, ‘I don’t need a bodyguard. I’m not Michael Jackson.’ I’ve done it a few times and I’ll probably do it again.”
Much like his history at Madison Square Garden.
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