After 10 years of selling out Madison Square Garden once a month, Billy Joel is ending his residency on Thursday.
It’s not the end of his touring life. The singer has said he plans to play even bigger venues in the New York area, like Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, now that his run at the Garden is up.
But for some fans, the MSG run was special: No artist has ever had such a long-running residency at the arena, which is famous around the globe, not just in New York City.
Some of those fans are pouring into the city this week to catch the final show, and speculating as to which artists Joel might bring onstage. Previous guests have included Olivia Rodrigo, Bruce Springsteen and Joel’s ex-wife Christie Brinkley.
Christopher Vanderpool, 22, is hoping for Paul McCartney.
Vanderpool, a recent Brown University graduate now living in Washington, D.C., said he is acutely aware that his age makes him stand out at Billy Joel shows, which he said typically draw an older crowd. He said he fields questions about it every time, with people wondering if he’s there with his parents or grandparents.
Christopher Vanderpool, pictured in North Carolina, in October 2018 at his first concert: Billy Joel.
Courtesy of Christopher Vanderpool
Joel’s music has had an unusual resurgence among Gen-Z in recent years, after his 1977 album cut “Vienna” went viral online.
Vanderpool believes it’s because the lyrics caution young people to slow down and enjoy the ride.
“In today’s day and age, with kids enjoying vinyl and taking photos on film, it’s a bit of nostalgia for a different time,” Vanderpool said.
Other fans coming in for Thursday’s show have a bit more practice with Joel’s MSG shows.
Michael Grosvenor and Jack Firneno, co-hosts of the Billy Joel-themed podcast “Glass Houses,” have been to so many shows at the Garden residency that they have their own section.
“There’s a section behind the stage where a lot of people from the Facebook group ‘Billy Joel Retold,’ we’ll all buy tickets and hang out together,” Fernino said.
Fernino said the seats behind the stage actually provide an excellent view – an example of the specialized knowledge the pair have gained by attending more than 30 Billy Joel shows combined.
Billy Joel, pictured in concert at MSG in February, 2019.
Photo by Daniel Shapiro
For the final night, Grosvenor is flying in from Washington state and Fernino is coming up from Philadelphia.
“It’s really something to see teenagers and people in their early 20s slow dancing when he plays ‘Vienna’ and singing every lyric,” Fernino said. “It’s not a novelty to them, that’s actually their song, this song that came out nearly 50 years ago.”
Another fan, Chris Muldoon, has been hosting a radio show devoted to Billy Joel at Nassau Community College since 2006.
“The station manager at the time proposed a Rolling Stones show, and I said ‘Rolling Stones? Billy Joel’s the patron saint of Long Island. How do you not have a Billy Joel show?’” Muldoon recalled.
So they made him host it.
Now his listeners include members of Joel’s band, who have helped him give away thousands of free tickets via the radio show, Muldoon said.
Muldoon has seen Billy Joel 11 times, though he found tickets for this final show so prohibitively expensive that he didn’t even consider going.
As of this writing, tickets on the resale market at Ticketmaster were starting at around $700, and some seats in the back of the stadium were on offer for more than $1,000.
For Muldoon, Joel is one of the most important franchises at Madison Square Garden, after the Knicks and the Rangers.
“He’s our Long Island guy, but his music is sort of the soul of New York City,” Muldoon said.