Few musicians can say they celebrated their 75th birthday blowing out candles on a cake just ahead of putting on a 140-minute show in front of a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden. Billy Joel can, though, and did just that ahead of his May 9 show at the legendary venue. He’s been setting records and milestones at MSG since he began the monthly residency in 2014 — a run broken only by the pandemic lockdown, and one that’s set to wrap up in July after a total of 150 performances.
Yes, Taylor Swift’s Eras tour reset the bar for modern concertgoing spectacle, but as Joel proved again and again for 10 years (give or take), sometimes all you need is a guy at a piano on a motorized turntable and a roaring backup band to rock the house. “No one anticipated this would go for 10 years,” says Steve Cohen, Joel’s creative director, who wears many hats. Both Cohen and soundman Brian Ruggles have been with Joel for more than 50 years.
“That’s unheard of. It’s kind of a unicorn — and I think with Billy it was a perfect storm.” For those unable to make it to the Garden before the residency’s end next month, the 100th show was captured for CBS as “The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden — the Greatest Arena Run of All Time,” and featured guests including Sting and Jerry Seinfeld.
It was Joel’s first concert special on network TV — and despite a timing glitch that ended the broadcast mid-”Piano Man” (and prompted a reairing by CBS) — it’s.
