Billy Joel Setlist (March 3rd, 2017)
Saw "The Franchise" (Billy Joel) at MSG on Friday as a Christmas gift my wife and I gave each other. Not my first time seeing Billy, having first seen him about 20+ years ago as the first concert with said wife, then on the 12 night Garden run in 2006 plus his last Jazz Fest appearance a few years ago. At this point, we know he is going to shuffle us through nearly all of the hits (citing album and year before some of them) and you'll have a great time singing along to your favorites.
No opening act, but Friday's show did have a few guest appearances. First, a few members of The Young Rascals showed up for "Good Lovin'" which was really good. Next, Billy had the daughter of one of his crew members playing flute on her 18th birthday along with Mark Riviera for "She's Always A Woman". But lastly, the best guest was John Cougar Mellencamp appearing as he led Billy and the band through "Authority Song". Aside from the decent guest appearances, the crowd selected songs worked in my favor towards ones I like with "Vienna" over "Summer Highland Falls" and "Downeaster' Alexa" over "Keeping The Faith".
Still would recommend if you have never seen him before or have $125 burning a hole in your wallet for a ticket (and that is for 200 level low row seats one section from the stage line), but would not consider the show a "must see". For those of you considering playing the "see if ticket prices drop on StubHub" game, this run is still going strong and I have not seen any real benefit from that strategy over the past year as I have been watching game day resales, so hitting the box office on sale is still the way to go.