Just as Billy was launching into the finale of the two hour show — the last verse of “Piano Man” with all of Madison Square Garden singing along — the screen went black.
When it recovered, it wasn’t Joel taking a bow with his band for what had been a remarkable, Emmy worthy special. No, it was the local news anchor (and not Dana Tyler).
CBS paid a fortune to put this show on two weeks ago the Garden, and this was how it ended.
Fans are demanding the whole show be rerun immediately on CBS, not just Paramount Plus. But this episode should be a lesson to CBS — their share of viewers is already diminished severely. They don’t need a boycott.
Viewers throughout the Eastern and Central Time Zones had the broadcast of the Billy Joel concert cut off, mid-Piano Man.
Evidently, CBS was no longer in the mood for a melody. pic.twitter.com/bVlcIReRXn
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 15, 2024
Anyway, the special will also be available to stream live or on demand in the United States for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers.
CBS announced on Sunday that the musician's record-breaking 100th consecutive Madison Square Garden concert will be recorded when it takes place on March 28, and later air on the network on April 14.
The program, officially titled The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden — The Greatest Arena Run of All Time, will mark the first time that Joel has ever aired a concert on a broadcast network.
Ahead the Super Bowl, the network announced it would stream Billy Joel’s 100th concert at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, April 14 at 9 pm ET/PT. The two hour special, titled The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden — The Greatest Run Of All Time, marks the first time a Billy Joel concert will air on a broadcast network. It will be filmed at his March 28 show, and will also be available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+.
The news comes as Joel is set to end his MSG residency this July with his 150th career performance at the New York arena. His first came in late 1978, when Joel, who was touring on behalf of his 52nd Street album, headlined the venue for his first time. In early 2014, he began a monthly residency as MSG’s first “music franchise,” and has sold out every show since. He’s shrewdly changed up his set list from performance to performance, and recruited special guests like Tony Bennett, Bruce Springsteen and Olivia Rodrigo.
The final show of his residency is set for July. It will be his 104th show in the series, and his 150th performance there. “I’m kind of flabbergasted that it lasted as long as it did,” Joel said at a news conference last year. “My team tells me that we could continue to sell tickets, but 10 years, 150 shows — all right already!
“I have this high bar that I set for myself. If I don't reach that bar, I beat myself up and I punch myself and I hate myself. So I stopped doing [music] because I got tired of feeling like that,” Joel admitted on the Audacy Check-In podcast. “Music is fun. Rock N’ Roll was fun.”
He also noted that the songwriting process often feels “lonely” when you “do it on your own,” which was the opposite of how he wanted the music creation process to be.
