So Billy Joel just got interviewed by the Times

I never understood why he chose Madison Square Garden as a venue. I guess it's no different than the other arenas he's played, but it doesn't seem to me to be conducive to a music performance.

I've never liked his music but his keyboardist was my neighbor when I was growing up. Joel showed up there a few times and was always super-nice to me (I was blown away that a celebrity knew my little block). In retrospect, he was a quintessential earthy north shore LI kinda guy.

Why oh why would he choo$e M$G....hmmm....it’$ a my$tery....

I loved some of his early songs.

But as time went on, not so much.

Uptown Gurl? NO, gurl. Tacky.

Knowing that various skilled songwriters have expressed disdain for the subtlety-free pomposities that are "Goodnight Saigon" and "Piano Man" may have humbled him a little.

and that terrible story about how his first album was put out at the wrong speed/tempo, is tragic.

I was from Jersey and we were Springsteen people of course. I wanted to like Billy Joel and you could tell he had a lot of talent, but he seemed to have less heart than Bruce, who, I admit, can ve turgid at times, but Joel seemed snotty and sneery. I guess he's mellowed.

"be turgid"

I always liked him more than Springsteen.

I'm now listening to Glass Houses. It was the first Billy Joel album I didn't buy it when it was new. I'm familiar with the first three songs.

[quote]but Joel seemed snotty and sneery.

But it sort of worked for him. "Mama, if that's moving up, then I'm moving out!"

And he did get a Broadway jukebox musical which ran a respectable three years and produced touring companies.

I like Springsteen more because more of Springsteen's songs are personal anthems for me. But I have always had room for both in my life.

And I LOVE "Goodbye, Saigon." Long Live Bombast!

I'd like to see Springsteen out of his pants and turgid.

"Goodnight, Saigon," that is.

So? So what. "So" should not be used to start sentences! This is not your Twitter feed!

You just started three sentences with "so."

So eat shit, r15. That's "so what."

he sold hundreds of million of records: he's allowed to have an attitude, OP.

I like, not love, his music. I recently heard a clip of him singing in concert and he sounded great

Not douchey? Pffft.

He wrote a song for his wife in which he told her, "Don't go changing to try to please me. I love you just the way you are." And then he divorced her and married Christie Brinkley.

Later he divorced Christie Brinkley and married a 23 year old. His 18 year old daughter by Brinkley was maid of honor.

No douchey? He's pure unadulterated douche.

Didn't he try to kill himself over some local news woman by drinking furniture polish? Not sure if that was before or after Brinkley.

I think it worked.

He does a great Tony Bennett imitation.

I've seen him in concert w/Paul Simon and he’s very entertaining. He chats up the audience. He’s very popular in NY. A few times I got stuck in traffic to the GW Bridge when returning home via NJ when he was headlining at Yankee Stadium and had to sit waiting for 45 minutes to get over the bridge. The same thing used to happen when Springsteen played Yankee Stadium.

Which reminds me - do they play in the new Yankee Stadium?

[quote] I never understood why he chose Madison Square Garden as a venue. I guess it's no different than the other arenas he's played, but it doesn't seem to me to be conducive to a music performance.

1) Are you joking? All rock musicians play MSG......for years and years, selling out MSG was a mark of success. It still is.

2) MSG sits atop Penn Station. People from LI and north of the city take trains to MSG, no car needed. Take the LIRR straight to Penn or Metro North to Grand Central and take Times Square Shuttle to the west Side and get off at Penn. You could just walk from 42nd to 33rd Street, but most out of towers wouldn’t want to walk that far.. Literally millions of people have relatively easy access to Penn Station via public transport.

3) Who’s playing MSG in in upcoming months? Drake, Rod Stewart, Cindy Lauper, ELO, the Eagles, Smashing Pumpkins, Shakira, Childish Gambino and a bunch of country & western music people I never heard of but are probably famous.

R25

The decision to do 100 shows there is the thing I think.

Joel and Springsteen are so different so I'm not sure why it's an either/or proposition. I can certainly appreciate both a pop artist and a rock musician.

Joel is certainly not the first man to get a taste of stardom and dump the plain first wife to marry a model type. And neither he nor Brinkley were faithful in that marriage.

People seem to forget that Springsteen famously cheated on his first wife with the second one, and that the paps caught him out on a hotel balcony with her in his underwear while still married to the first.

It was Springsteen who was wearing his underwear, r27, not Patti. Just kidding.

As a young gayling, I jerked off to that photo on the top right many, many times.

[quote]Are you joking? All rock musicians play MSG

I consider Billy Joel more of a balladeer than a rock musician. I can understand a rock band playing there, but so many of BJ's songs are not "guitar/drum" songs.

Even though he's sold out 100 consecutive shows at MSG, there must be a better place in NYC for him to play! I just don't understand it!!!

[quote] he sold hundreds of million of records: he's allowed to have an attitude, OP.

No.

Garbage music for garbage people. Enjoy your boozy singalongs.

[quote] The decision to do 100 shows there is the thing, I think

The Grateful Dead played 52 concerts at MSG between 79-94. If they were still alive they’d probably hit 100 performances.

Elton John had played MSG 64 times as of 2015 (another “balladeer”)

What other NY venue do you propose?

R39 I saw Billy Joel years ago during one of his tours with Elton John. Billy's drummer got sick two songs into the set and ran offstage, never to return.

Elton John's piano player took over drumming duties right away guided by Billy's guitar player. So yeah, the balladeer was all about drums and guitars.

MSG is an easy venue for Joel. He lives nearby. He's guaranteed to sell out or nearly sell out the place because the LIRR goes directly to Penn Station. Billy is huge on LI. Nearly everyone has met him, bumped into him, has a friend who has done work for him, etc. He's lived all over LI from suburban Nassau County to the Hamptons to the Gold Coast. He usually has at least 2 LI houses at any given time and no doubt has a place in manhattan, too. MSG is easy peasy for him.

He likes to perform. He genuinely likes the audience and does a little sort of comedy act every time he performs and he's been doing little comedy routines since his first appearances at My Father's Place. I used to listen to live broadcasts of his sets at My Father's Place on the radio back when WLIR (and possibly WBAB) used to broadcast them. He used to spill the tea on the rock bands he opened for, talking about things like them stuffing bananas in their pants.

I've never heard a bad story about him. Even when he smashed his car up a few times he was extremely polite to the police. Luckily, he stopped doing that years ago. One of my neighbors repairs, stores, "opens" and "closes" outdoor furniture here in the hamptons and Joel was a client for a while and my neighbor, who is an old guy who is not a baby boomer, liked him very much. Everyone says the same thing about him - he's very down to earth.

[quote] I guess it's no different than the other arenas he's played, but it doesn't seem to me to be conducive to a music performance.

It's conducive to making boatloads of money.

He was a patient at my NYC hospital when he was married to Christie Brinkley. Back in those days before HIPAA the media would actually tell which hospitals stars were at and what they were in the hospital for! Billy had kidney stones. A lot of my friends did private duty for him and they all liked him a lot. Christie called him “Joe.” The medical and surgical residents used to hang around trying to catch a glimpse of Christie (who is still beautiful today).

Years later a helicopter kept flying low over my backyard and there was a guy half hanging out the helicopter door. I called the police and when I told them my location they said, “Oh yeah, Christie Brinkley is getting married 2 or 3 farm fields over from you. The helicopter guy is taking pictures.” Sho nuff, it was true. I can’t remeber which husband she was marrying. I think it was Peter Cook, the architect who cheated on her with his 18 year old secretary. Years later, he was seen taking photos of girls walking around Sag Harbor in scanty summer clothes.

"He lives nearby" is the funniest reason to play a venue. I'm picturing Joel grabbing a jacket from the coat rack and jumping into the waiting Uber.

[quote] He lives nearby" is the funniest reason to play a venue.

Well, he’s laughing all the way to the bank for that funny reason. And he’s breaking the MSG record because he lives a lot closer to MSG than Elton John does. But he has a limo, not an Uber. There are lots of people who live and perform in NY, like Colbert, Fallon, Trevor Noah, John Oliver, the people on The View and that’s exactly what they do - get in the limo and go perform (in front of an audience, then go home.

It’s nice work if you can get it. Pays well, too and you don’t have to spend time and money going on tour

Bruce Springsteen also appears more in the NY/NJ metro area than anywhere else for the same reason. He’s got a huge local fan base, doesn’t have to travel far and rakes in the dough. Notice he did his show on Broadway, not in Vegas.

[quote]Later he divorced Christie Brinkley

Didn't she divorce him?

I've moved on.

Supposedly they fly him in via the 34th street heliport for his concerts and he speeds down 34th street to MSG. According to a profile I read a few years ago they land the helicopter at his house on Long Island. It's a pretty sweet gig.

What's not really mentioned in all the MSG hoopla is the sole reason he can do this residency at MSG is because of Barclays Center. Since it opened and major acts have another arena to play, MSG was in danger of sitting empty.

[quote] Joel and Springsteen are so different so I'm not sure why it's an either/or proposition.

It's a NY/NJ thing. I grew up on New York and we were strictly Billy. My cousins in Jersey were strictly Bruce.

I like both, but as an adult I've listened to more Bruce and I think his music is much deeper.

Also, Billy stopped writing new music 25 years ago which seemed like a shame, but I can't say any of the Bruce that's come out in the last decade has been worthy, so maybe he was smart. Lots of people assumed he wrote Alexa's music when she had a short career.

Finally I've met Billy Joel and he was very down to earth and nice. At the time he was smoking Marlboro Reds and we smoked together.

What does Alexa do now?

[quote]I had no idea that he's sold out Madison Square Garden 100x

Billy Joel has always been huge in the tri-state area.

The video for "Allentown" had some nudity

^ Starting about at 1:55 mark

I had his greatest hits in high school and loved it. But then grunge hit, and I threw the tape away. Now, with time, I realize he sucked. But I will always let "My Life" play through if it comes on.

He’s found his financial formula for his golden years: a cash cow residency at MSG vs. recording albums that won’t sell in today’s music biz. His last album was 25 years ago.

He gets a lot of shit for being eternally unfashionable but he was a solid songwriter and performer. I don't know what more people expect out of someone like him. He's a lot better than, say, the bombastic Michael Bolton, another tri-state troubadour.

I’m not a fan of his music but I’ve akways heard he’s very nice and not a douche

I'm glad he's stopped driving all fucked-up drunk and coked out and crashing his cars all over Long Island. For a while there it was like a monthly update.

I've never been much of a fan, but I like "Just the Way You Are" and "Big Shot."

I saw him at MSG during Fleet Week last year. He put on a good show and I say this as someone who is not really a fan. He is good at working the crowd and appearing to have a good time himself (you know that he must be bored with the songs after all these years). Most of the crowd, though, was pure tri-state trash. The drunken assholes around us were hassling a group of Jewish women and we had to go get security. Fortunately, security moved the women to a better spot. We were unpopular for the rest of the show, to put it mildly.

R42

But he sells out MSG.

Why MSG? Are you stupid? It's the most famous arena in the world! You've reached the pinnacle if you have sold out MSG! It's a dream for any artist of all genres.

Barclays?Nobody cares about Barclays. It's fucking smaller and it's a shit venue.

I remember watching one of those VH1 artist stories and he was very broke, screwed by crooked manager or something, drug and booze issues.

I once walked a few blocks with him at night. He was probably digesting his dinner with his friends and I was walking home in Manhattan. I could tell it was him by his voice. Just saw his back and side profile.

I always thought Billy's bombastic showy style was suited for Broadway, then years down the line there was a Broadway show based around his music.

Billy is friends with Sting. Sting bought his second NYC apartment, on CPW, from Billy.

[quote] Interviewer: As someone who’s loved your music for years, may I say, I’d be O.K. if I never heard “Piano Man” again as long as I live.

[quote] BJ: I’m with you! I don’t think it’s that good a song. It’s a story song, like “Taxi” with Harry Chapin, more of a folk song than a pop tune. It’s in 6/8 time, which is a waltz, about these losers in a bar. But people love it. [Shrugs] There’s a lot of my songs I could never hear again and live quite happily.

Well at least he’s honest.

No bad blood between these two. That’s refreshing.

Miami 2017 from Songs in the Attic is my favorite song of all time. Years later I found out I was at that show at MSG on 6/24/80. Damn time flies. I also love Los Angelenos.

[quote] Supposedly they fly him in via the 34th street heliport for his concerts and he speeds down 34th street to MSG. According to a profile I read a few years ago they land the helicopter at his house on Long Island.

Which house? He's got more than one.

He has a Manhattan apartment. He doesn't need to be helicoptered in and "speed down 34th St."

PS - you speed UP 34th Street from the heliport

It’s very upsetting that he didn’t choose a better venue for his type of music. Why MSG for for a piano singer? It makes no sense!

I believe he spends most of his time on LI and rarely uses the Manhattan apartment, which is probably for his sad sack daughter.