On the final night of his historic monthly residency at his hometown arena, Madison Square Garden, Billy Joel sang about “The River of Dreams” —the doo-wop-meets-Afro-pop ditty that became his last Top 10 single to date in 1993.
It was easily the cheesiest song of the night, but hey, a hit is a hit.
On this special Thursday evening, when Joel was saying goodbye to his house after 10 years, 104 sold-out shows and 1.9 million tickets scanned, it took on a sentimental significance for the 75-year-old local legend, who described the residency as “a dream come true.”
Indeed, the Bronx-born, Long Island-bred Piano Man reminisced about going to the old Madison Square Garden — located further uptown in Manhattan on 8th Avenue between 49th and 50th streets — “when I was, like, a 4-year-old to see the circus and watch Gene Autry sing ‘Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.’
“And now,” he marveled, “here I am doing this.”
The resident “Big Shot” — sorry to the Knicks and the Rangers — was pinching himself that he has ruled the big daddy of all arenas, even without basically not releasing any new pop music since last millennium. (Save for the great new piano ballad “Turn the Lights Back On,” which he dropped five months ago but didn’t perform last night.)
Let that sink in for a second.
But after saying “Welcome to Madison Square Garden” for the umpteenth time as if he owned the place — and really, he does — Joel announced what we already knew: “This is our last night in the residency that we’ve been doing here.”
Moans and groans from his ever-adoring audience were met with: “I know, I know, we don’t wanna go either, but it’s time. It’s 10 years. None of us knew we would be able to do this for this long. This has been the best gig that we’ve ever done, ever.”
And for Joel, that’s saying something. He went on to flex about some of the other great gigs he’s played in his Rock & Roll Hall of Fame career, including the first rock show at Yankee Stadium in 1990, the Last Play at Shea concerts in 2008 and performing in Berlin on the night that the Berlin Wall came down.
The man has some historic props.
“But out of all of them, this is the best,” he said. “There’s no place like it. The band loves it, the crew loves it.”
Then, he added with a sly grin, “We’ll come back.”
Although much has been made about this being Joel’s goodbye to the Garden, this is only the end of his monthly residency. He played MSG 46 times before his record-breaking run started on January 27, 2014, culminating in him seeing his 150th-show banner being raised above the stage after a tribute from Jimmy Fallon.
And as long as there’s still rock ’n’ roll, he’ll play the Garden again.
