Billy Joel’s 80th Consecutive MSG Show: A Wonderful Night Full Of Incredible Hits

Posted On June 12, 2022

Samantha Colleran, June 2022

I’m proud to call myself an official New Yorker now that I’ve officially seen Billy Joel. In November I received an email alerting me of a presale for Billy Joel’s 80th consecutive Madison Square Garden show, and I immediately texted my mom to see if she thought it would be a good Christmas gift for my brother Justin, who is a massive Billy Joel fan. Of course she said yes, and without hesitation I grabbed the first two tickets I could. The day before Christmas Eve when we were doing our gift exchange with two of our best friends Jonathan and Matt, I presented him with two little bottles of wine and a note that read “A bottle of white, a bottle of red, perhaps you’d like to see Billy Joel for his 80th consecutive show at MSG instead? We have two tickets in Section 222, in an old familiar place- you and I, June 10, 2022.” (Thank you Mom for the amazing gift presentation idea, and for buying the wine because I’m not 21 yet.)

The day finally came, and it was absolutely perfect. Justin has seen Billy Joel once before, but a milestone show is special, and I wanted to treat my brother to something awesome! We bought our Billy Joel shirts, made our way to our seats, and prepared ourselves for an evening full of hits. Normally this would be the point in my post where I’d give a little shout out to the opening act, but the cool thing about classic acts like Billy Joel is that they don’t have opening acts, it’s two or so hours of strictly their music. Once the clock hit about 8:30, Billy Joel and his band stepped out on stage, and the moment we had been waiting for had officially begun. 

For a milestone show as massive as Billy Joel’s, we knew we were in for a night of classics we could sing our hearts out to. Billy opened the show with one of my favorite songs, “Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)”, and it felt like the perfect way to kick off such an awesome night. “I Go To Extremes” followed, and then Billy was presented with a banner for most shows played at MSG by any artist (126 spanning his career), and most consecutive shows in the arena, by Rangers members Adam Graves and Mike Richter. The banner went up and remained suspended in the air for the remainder of the show, a tribute to the legend himself. 

My personal favorite song of the night was “Just The Way You Are”, which is in my top two Billy Joel songs of all time. Last time Justin went to see Billy, he made the crowd choose between “Vienna” and “Just The Way You Are”, and the crowd chose “Vienna”, so this was an awesome moment for both of us to experience together. Of course a few songs later he did “Vienna”, so our crowd was lucky to witness both! “The River Of Dreams” is another song that Justin and I love a lot, and this song was another highlight of the night for me. I have to take this moment to give a MAJOR shoutout to Crystal Taliefero, Billy’s percussionist and backing vocalist. Her voice completely blew me away, and she had a moment to shine with a “Dancing In The Street” interlude during “The River Of Dreams” that had me out of my seat dancing my butt off. 

Billy Joel is older now than he was when recording all of his studio albums and his voice has been through a lot, so right before singing “An Innocent Man” he joked with the audience and told us we could “boo and all that shit” if he missed the high notes. Obviously, he perfected it all three times, and there was no booing necessary. Other great hits such as “New York State Of Mind”, “She’s Always A Woman”, “And So It Goes”, and “The Downeaster ‘Alexa’” were strong moments of the night that caused the audience to erupt into thunderous applause. 

More upbeat moments of the night that had the crowd up and out of their seats were “Only The Good Die Young”, “My Life”, and the five song encore which comprised of “We Didn’t Start The Fire” (I still can’t get all of the words right- but it was still amazing to see the Piano Man holding an electric guitar in his hands for a few moments), “Uptown Girl” which is one of Justin’s favorite songs, “It’s Still Rock ‘n’ Roll To Me” that allowed Billy to share some killer dance moves with the crowd, “Big Shot”, and show closer “You May Be Right” with a Led Zeppelin “Rock And Roll” interlude sung by band member Michael Delguidice. Michael also led us into “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant” with a cover of “Nessun dorma”, and it was a surreal moment seeing the song I used for inspiration to present the tickets to Justin sung live. 

“Piano Man” was a great moment not only because it’s one of Billy Joel’s biggest hits, but it has a special meaning for Justin. He’s in a fraternity, and at the end of every party he and his fraternity brothers stand in a circle with party attendees in their frat garage and sing their hearts out to this song (I’ve been to visit him plenty of times and this is always a sweet moment to be part of). It was really heartwarming to see him recording the song to share with his frat brothers, and we had a quick little moment of swaying together and recreating the circle with just the two of us. 

All in all, it was a perfect night and a wonderful way to celebrate a legend reaching a massive milestone in his career. Justin’s a fun concert buddy, maybe we’ll go to show #90 in a year or so and relive the night! Billy Joel, the king of Madison Square Garden, thank you for a beautiful night; I wouldn’t change anything about it and I hope to see you again soon!