[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHSafc4uK2A&w=560&h=315]Billy Joel opened his 13-month, 13-show residency at Madison Square Garden on Monday night before a sold-out crowd and I was in the ninth row.
At one point the 64-year-old Joel looked up at the big screen and said, “‘I didn’t think I was going to end up looking like that. I thought I was going to look like Cary Grant.”
Joel holds the record for the most number of Garden sellouts in a single year (12 in 2006) — and has a banner in the Garden rafters for that accomplishment. His 46 sellouts dating back to 1978 is also a Garden record.
“I have no idea how long this is going to go,” he cracked of the residency, which resumes Feb. 2, the day after the Super Bowl. “What was I thinking?”
He sounded great and the enthusiastic crowd sang along with every word. Here’s the setlist:
1. Miami 2017
2. Pressure
3. Summer, Highland Falls
4. The Longest Time
5. Blonde Over Blue
6. Everybody Loves You Now
7. All For Leyna
8. Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)
9. Where’s the Orchestra?
10. Allentown
11. Big Man on Mulberry Street
12. New York State of Mind
13. Zanzibar
14. The Entertainer
15. She’s Always a Woman
16. Don’t Ask Me Why
17. The River of Dreams
18. Scenes From an Italian Restaurant
19. Piano Man
Encore:
20. Big Shot
21. It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me
22. You May Be Right
23. Only the Good Die Young
