Billy Joel‘s epic, decade-long residency at New York’s Madison Sq. Backyard needed to finish sometime. And on Thursday (June 1) the 74-year-old piano man was joined by New York Mayor Eric Adams for a press convention saying the start of that finish.
After kicking off the run in January 2014, after almost 150 reveals and greater than 1.6 million tickets bought, the ultimate 10-show spree will kick-off on Oct. 20. “There’s just one factor that’s extra New York than Billy Joel — and that’s a Billy Joel live performance at MSG,” Mayor Adams stated in a written assertion earlier than a gathering that additionally featured MSG CEO James Dolan. “For greater than 50 years, Billy’s music has outlined our metropolis and introduced us collectively. On behalf of 8.5 million New Yorkers, congratulations, Billy, on a historic run of sold-out reveals at MSG, and thanks for a lifetime of bringing pleasure to us all.”
Dolan praised Joel for making MSG, and music trade historical past with the decade-long collection of capability reveals. “150 bought out lifetime reveals is a outstanding achievement, and speaks to Billy’s extraordinary expertise, beloved catalog, and devoted fanbase,” stated Dolan in a press release. “Billy all the time has a house right here at MSG despite the fact that the residency is coming to an finish along with his one hundred and fiftieth lifetime efficiency.”
“Should you google Billy Joel’s home, they confirmed Madison Sq. Backyard, which is form of cool,” Joel quipped throughout a press convention on Thursday. “I by no means discovered my bed room although.” Dolan added that the residency “exceeded even our wildest desires” and {that a} run of reveals like Joel’s was “by no means gonna occur once more.”
Joel’s residency was introduced almost a decade in the past, in December 2013. After the primary efficiency, in January 2014, the singer went on to set Madison Sq. Backyard data: Most Lifetime Performances By Any Artist (136 reveals) and Most Consecutive Performances (90 reveals). Joel hasn’t launched an album of contemporary pop songs since 1993, however in 2018, he advised The New York Instances that his touring enterprise “is larger now than it was on the top of my recording profession.”
In 2006 he set the venue document for many consecutive performances by an artist with 12 gigs in a row, which was celebrated with a Joel-12 banner getting raised to the constructing’s rafters. He started the residency in Jan. 2014 by taking part in one how a month so long as followers saved exhibiting up. And so they did, with Joel breaking his personal 12-show document inside a yr, then hitting his a centesimal lifetime gig in July 2018, prompting then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo to dub July 18, 2018 “Billy Joel Day.”
The concept for Joel’s residency was born after he was recovering from hip surgical procedure. “I hadn’t actually performed a tour since 2010,” the singer advised Billboard in 2014. “I performed Jazzfest in New Orleans in 2012, a one-off in Australia at some weird competition in Sydney, I didn’t actually begin enthusiastic about working once more till I performed on the 12-12-12 live performance for Hurricane Sandy Aid on the Backyard.”
Following that efficiency, Joel continued, “the Backyard contacted my agent Dennis Arfa and stated we’d love to do a collection of reveals with Billy Joel on the Backyard. They didn’t consult with it as a franchise at first, it was a residency. I heard that and thought, ‘hmm, that’s kinda cool… all I gotta do is commute.’”
Followers have been fast to snap up tickets. “I suppose they regarded on the ticket demand as soon as it was introduced and thought, ‘wait a minute, this man can maintain taking part in right here for the remainder of his pure life,’” Joel joked.
After the a centesimal efficiency in 2018, he advised The New York Instances he didn’t suppose he would maintain the residency going lengthy sufficient to play 200 reveals. “I’m nonetheless exhausted from the opposite night time, which didn’t used to occur,” Joel stated. “I don’t suppose I’ll have the bodily wherewithal to do it 5 years from now.”
“If I can’t do it as effectively I need to, I’ll take myself out of the lineup,” he added. “I like the sport an excessive amount of to not play it effectively.”
Tickets for the ultimate MSG reveals will go on sale to most of the people starting at 10 a.m. ET on June 9 by Ticketmaster and on the MSG field workplace the next day; click on right here for extra data.
