Billy Joel Joined by Axl Rose for ‘Highway to Hell’ as He Hits the Highway Out of Madison Square Garden With a Rousing Residency Finale: Concert Review

variety.com:

A.D. Amorosi From Elvis at the International to Adele at Caesars Palace, other artists have staked their claim to a single spot out with lengthy residencies out west, but no one’s become as legendary for doing it back east as Billy Joel with his regularly scheduled shows at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

And, certainly, no one’s done it in a venue this big, or with so much of a concentration on locals, not just attracting a tourist trade.

Since the residency began January 2014, the beloved, Bronx-born piano man has packed MSG every month – save for pandemic breaks – in a strange, magical ritual where fellow New Yorkers, primarily, flocked together to hear old, familiar songs about their five boroughs and its most colorful characters.Thursday night, at his 150th career show at the arena, that hometown advantage came to end as Joel closed out his longtime residency with a bang to a boisterously gleeful, often-teary-eyed, sold-out crowd hungry for their hero to continue this run at the Garden. “I know, I know, we don’t wanna go either,” said Joel to the devoted. “But it’s time.”You could almost smell money on the floor of MSG (the priciest tickets topped off at $10,000) as monthly attendees of Joel’s residency huddled around each other like war buddies, well aware of the fact that they might never share this experience again.

Men holding tall cans of Corona in one hand and miniature replicas of the “150” banner erected in Joel’s honor in the MSG rafters took selfies with their guy friends carrying the same banners and beers.