Billy Joel Soaked in the Love at Carnegie Hall Tribute Concert

On June 4, 1977, Billy Joel‘s life changed forever when producer Phil Ramone caught his show at Carnegie Hall, and was so impressed that he offered to produce his next LP, The Stranger. The album was so successful that Joel upgraded to Madison Square Garden the following year, performed there an astounding 149 additional times over the past five decades, and never again played a headline concert at Carnegie Hall. He was simply too popular for the relatively intimate space. 

But Joel returned to Carnegie Hall Thursday evening to witness an fantastically diverse lineup of artists – including Rufus Wainwright, Rob Thomas, Yola, Itzhak Perlman, Andrew McMahon, Matt Nathanson, Pat Monahan, Bettye LaVette, Ledisi, Wyclf Jean, and his daughter, Alexa Ray Joel – perform his music as part of City Winery founder Michael Dorf’s Music Of concert series, which has raised over $2 million over the past 20 years for music education charities.

Sitting alongside Pink in the first tier of the hall, Joel never made it onto the stage himself. (He’s battling the brain condition normal pressure hydrocephalus, and his only live appearance since February 2025 was a two-song appearance with the Billy Joel tribute act Turnstiles in Wellington, Florida, on January 2.) But his longtime touring band, minus guitarist/singer Mike DelGuidice, who had a pair of gigs in Florida this week, served as the house band, playing songs they’ve played hundreds of times with the Piano Man himself, some unexpected rarities, and one cut so deep none of them had done it before.

“I feel like in 2026, it’s hard to find anything we agree on,” Matt Nathanson told the crowd early in the night. “That’s what the world likes to tell us, that we’re not all on the same fuckin’ team. But tonight, on March 12, I think we can all agree that Billy Joel is a master songwriting legend…and I’m about to pass out, I’m so excited.”

That was the general vibe throughout the night, and Nathanson got the crowd more fired up than anyone else by playing an achingly tender, solo acoustic rendition of “I Got To Extremes,” and then followed it with a bombastic take on “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)” that had the entire room joining in. (You know it’s a crowd of Billy die-hards when they all sing “That was so many years ago/Before we all lived here in Florida/Before the Mafia took over Mexico” in perfect unison. This wasn’t exactly a radio hit or even a single.)

Yola kicked out the night with a high-energy “Movin Out (Anthony’s Song)” that showcased the talents of every member of Joel’s band, Rob Thomas delivered a soulful “Vienna,” Train’s Pat Monahan, slowed things down with a delicate “She’s Always a Woman,” and Mary Chapin Carpenter played a chilling “And So It Goes” with minimal accompaniment.

Jon McLaughlin went back to 1971’s Cold Spring Harbor for “Everybody Loves You Now,” and Alexa Ray Joel turned An Innocent Man‘s “This Night” into a torch ballad. “Dad, I want to dedicate this song to you, my musical hero, you and Beethoven,” she said, referencing the fact that Ludwig van Beethoven is credited as a co-writer on the track. “I also want to dedicate this song to my mother, who is my golden muse. Thank you for making me.”

Rufus Wainwright came out next for a stripped-back “Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel),” which Joel wrote for Alexa when she was little. “This song is so wonderful to sing,” he said, “especially when you have a daughter yourself, which I do. I’m thinking of her tonight.”

Ledisi sang a soaring rendition of Joel’s 2024 comeback song “Turn The Lights Back On,” and O.A.R. frontman Marc Roberge belted out “The Downeaster Alexa,” joined by violinist Itzhak Perlman, who played on the original recording.

Hours after his Fugees bandmates Lauryn Hill and Pras ended their legal spat over the group’s disastrous 2023 reunion tour, Wyclef Jean broke out a freestyle rap (“I’m a microphone pro/I came to represent for my homie Billy Joel”) as he played “My Life” along with the adolescent New York public school students in the nonprofit music program Music Will. (Their young pianist was particularly impressive.) 

Bettye LaVette always delivers something special at these events, and her soulful, gender-reversed “He’s Got a Way” was stellar. And Neal Francis found the New Orleans funk hidden inside 1978’s “Sitelloto.”

Sammy Rae radically transformed “River of Dreams” with the help of a ukulele and her scatting skills, before bringing the band back out for The Stranger‘s “Get It Right the First Time”, a song so obscure that Billy Joel himself hasn’t played it since 1979, and no member of his current band had done until a rehearsal gig the previous night. Unsurprisingly, they nailed it. (You’d think at least once during his decade-long MSG residency, they would have done The Stranger straight through. But Joel is one of the few classic rock icons to never jump on the complete album show bandwagon even a single time.)

Natalie Merchant wasn’t on the official bill for the show, but she came out for a remarkable “Allentown” alone at the piano that stripped out all of the Eighties gloss to showcase the bitterness and loss that was always hidden right under the surface. “I was raised in a Rust Belt down in western New York,” she said. “I lived four miles away from a factory. That factory shuttered, and everyone lost their jobs. When I heard this song on the radio, I thought, ‘He’s singing about us.’”

As with any Billy Joel show, they saved the biggest hits for the end. Curtis Harding had the entire crowd singing along to “Uptown Girl”; the sibling pop-soul Lawrence duo turned “Only The Good Die Young” into a Broadway-caliber showstopper; Gavin DeGraw tore through “Big Shot”; and an emotional Andrew McMahon came out with a harmonica rack for “Piano Man.” “If the 10-year-old version of myself could see me right now,” he said. “When I started playing piano, the first thing my parents gave me was Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits Volumes 1 and 2. It became my bible.”

Many in the crowd were craning their necks throughout the night to watch Joel as he soaked in the show, especially when his band took over for “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant” with Dan Orlando — who sat in with them throughout the night — on piano and vocals. This song has been the climax of basically every Billy Joel concert for the past 50 years. It was a little bittersweet to watch his band play it without him, but ultimately joyous since he was in the room to feel the massive outpouring of love from everyone.

The show ended with everyone coming back out for a euphoric “You May Be Right.” There were hopes in the air that Joel might make his way onto the stage and join them, as Bruce Springsteen,  R.E.M, Patti Smith, and other Music Of Honorees have done in years past. But it wasn’t in the cards. 

At this point, it’s quite possible that Joel himself doesn’t even know if he’ll ever return to the road. “Health comes first,” Alexa Ray Joel told the Hollywood Reporter on the afternoon of the show. “I said, ‘If you’re going to perform again, please stay seated at the piano. No throwing the microphone stand around!’”

That’s solid advice. And if he never performs again, that’s perfectly fine too. He’s given us a lot over the years and deserves a long and happy retirement with his family. And as the Carnegie Hall show proved, he created a body of work so strong that it’ll endure long past all of us.