‘This Is the Best!’ The 10 Greatest Moments From Billy Joel’s 150th Madison Square Garden Show, The Finale of His Decade-Long Residency

New York City in 1978 was a very different place. The city had nearly gone bankrupt only three years earlier and it still felt uncertain, edgy and threatening. But it was exploding with musical creativity, from the Bowery to the Bronx.

For an ambitious young musician, Bronx-born and raised on Long Island, coming off the most successful album of his career, it was time to come in from the suburbs and claim the city as his own. 

On Dec. 14, 1978, Billy Joel made his debut at Madison Square Garden.

Flash forward almost exactly 35 years to December 2013. That was when Joel, along with his longtime agent Dennis Arfa and Garden officials, came up with the audacious plan for the singer to perform a monthly residency at the arena — which would continue, he said then, “for as long as there’s demand.”

Onstage at the Garden on Thursday (July 25), Joel, 75, declared “It’s time.” In a joyous, raucous, moving night of music and memories, Billy Joel played his 150th show at Madison Square Garden and the finale of his unprecedented decade-long residency. He recalled the many milestones of his live career — one of the first acts to play Yankee Stadium and the “last play” at Shea Stadium; performing in Berlin before the Wall fell down, in the Soviet Union, in Havana, Cuba and at the Colosseum in Rome. 

“But out of all of them,” said Joel, “this is the best!”

To be sure, the demand to see Joel at the Garden has never slackened; on Thursday the place was packed to the rafters — where, of course banners hang proclaiming Joel’s MSG records: most consecutive performances by any artist and most lifetime performances by any artist. Jimmy Fallon joined Joel to raise the new “150 Performances” banner Thursday night. (Axl Rose was Joel’s second guest, later in the evening).

Over the past decade, the Garden reports, Joel has sold more than 1.9 million tickets to these shows to fans from all 50 states and more than 120 countries. But make no mistake; this was a hometown crowd, cheering the local references in Joel’s powerhouse, customary show opener “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway).”

Here are 10 of the greatest moments from the finale of Joel’s MSG residency