Outrageous — Music Monday bonus post
I am a Long Islander, having lived on this island virtually my entire life. I currently live in Hicksville, a town famous for two things — it’s a major stop on the Long Island Railroad, and it’s the home town of a certain Mr. William Martin Joel.
Yeah, I live about 2 1/2 miles from the house where Billy Joel grew up.
If you search this blog for the words “Billy Joel” you’ll soon reach the conclusion that I am a fan.
I’ve seen Billy Joel perform at Madison Square Garden during his residency. Three times, actually, including one show that was delayed by Covid …
The residency will come to an end in July. That last concert will be the 104th of the residency, he will have performed at the Garden over 150 times.
So when CBS announced it would record the March 28, 2024 concert — the 100th of the residency —and air it as a special on April 14 … well, you know what I’m doing on a Sunday night.
I knew they weren’t planning to show the whole concert. According to Setlist he sang for 2 1/2 hours, but the network planned to air the special in a two hour time slot, with commercials, so a good part of the performance had to be edited out.
And the heavily-promoted show was delayed by 30 minutes because a golf tournament ran overtime.
Still, I felt that the tv special captured the highlights, gave the viewer a taste of what it’s like to see a Billy Joel concert.
Until they committed an act so outrageous…
They saved “Piano Man”, Billy’s signature song, for the very last … and then cut the song mid verse to end the broadcast and switch over to local news. (At least, that’s what happened on the East Coast …)
Drew and I looked at each other. He said “They’re going to get letters.” He said “It’s like that time in the 60’s, when the network broke away from the football game to show Heidi.”
I said nothing, I was too shocked to speak.
But I found something on YouTube this morning … a guy who attended the March 28th concert…fan-made video of that iconic song …
I hate when that happens! The worst I remember was when my youngest were quite young, and watching something entirely age appropriate, and they news broke in with a report of a plane crash, showing photos of the crash site. I wrote them a letter! Also, ads for some bloody "true" cop show during children's programming. That owner was a local man and he responded that it was not right.
ReplyDeleteOMG! The stupidity! Why not cut into golf which is about as exciting as watching cheese mold. I had heard about the infamous Heidi incident. Whoever programmed that must have never worked in tv again. This is a great video. Loving how all the people sang the song
ReplyDeleteOh, so that's what the 100 meant! I saw the commercial, and I couldn't figure out what they meant by 100. But cutting a song? Yeah, that was a bad move.
ReplyDeleteI hope CBS is slammed good with fans complaints. The bombardment of commercials is bad enough but this is terrible. The video is outstanding. The fellow really captured the moment well. He's probably done this before. :) Thanks for sharing the bonus post with 4M. Have a boogietastic week, Robin!
ReplyDeleteWe DVR'd the special so we could skip the commercials and....aargh, thank you for the heads up. We hadn't watched it yet. Hiss boo CBS! My thanks to whoever shot this video. It was so wonderful hearing everyone in the crowd singing. To me that's the pinnacle of artistry success. What a bonus this week!
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