Billy Joel/Heidi game (1 Viewer)

[Jeffrey D]

Eddie Trunk talked about what happened during CBS’s coverage of a Madison Square Garden concert they aired. The preceding show ran a bit long, so they started his concert a bit behind schedule. They almost got it all in, but not quite- during his most iconic concert song- Piano Man, the network cut to the local news. For those that aren’t familiar with my Heidi game reference, this happened in the late 60s on NBC, at the end of a Raiders/Jets game- the network cut off the end of a close game, and started showing Heidi. Did anyone see this concert coming to an abrupt end the other night?

 

[Robert Saccone]

Nope I turned the channel once the lights went up. Was Piano Man an encore?

 

[Jeffrey D]

Nope I turned the channel once the lights went up. Was Piano Man an encore?

It’s the song he ends most if not all concerts with. His feelings about the song these days are not really fond- he thinks it’s not even close to his best work, but if he doesn’t play it in concert, a lot of fans would be hugely disappointed, or even angry. It has become a huge audience participation number- what he does is stop playing when the third chorus would be (Sing us a song, you’re the piano man…), and the whole audience sings/screams it in unison.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I heard a news account about this yesterday, too.

Apparently it only impacted viewers of the concert on the East Coast.

I was only able to watch the first half of the concert as it aired. Fortunately, I thought, I saw that the concert started late due to The Masters coverage running late--so I was able to adjust the end time on my DVR recording.

I watched another song last night (a long one, mind you--Scenes from an Italian Restaurant) but have yet to make it to the end.

If Piano Man is cut off, that would be quite unusual...only because you figure the network would have set its computers (and notified affiliates) of the times they needed to be ready to take over their broadcast window and air their local news.

I should have time to finish watching tonight.

 

[Jeffrey D]

I heard a news account about this yesterday, too.

Apparently it only impacted viewers of the concert on the East Coast.

I was only able to watch the first half of the concert as it aired. Fortunately, I thought, I saw that the concert started late due to The Masters coverage running late--so I was able to adjust the end time on my DVR recording.

I watched another song last night (a long one, mind you--Scenes from an Italian Restaurant) but have yet to make it to the end.

If Piano Man is cut off, that would be quite unusual...only because you figure the network would have set its computers (and notified affiliates) of the times they needed to be ready to take over their broadcast window and air their local news.

I should have time to finish watching tonight.

Italian Restaurant is a classic. I have the Last Play At Shea and the Russia concert from the 80s on BluRay- haven’t gotten around to watching them yet.

 

[Malcolm R]

I thought I heard that the concert was pre-recorded, too, so it seems even more odd that they couldn't work out the timing at the network.

 

[Jeffrey D]

I thought I heard that the concert was pre-recorded, too, so it seems even more odd that they couldn't work out the timing at the network.

Trunk did say the late local news is time-locked, and doesn’t get pushed back due to preceding programming running behind, so this was an unfortunate, but unavoidable situation (CBS would have had to do Heidi on the Masters to show the whole concert, but obviously wasn’t going to do that).

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The national CBS feed carried the entire broadcast but some of the local affiliates opted to switch to local news coverage at 11:30pm. This was probably a pre-existing contractual obligation. I think it’s more baffling that CBS national didn’t instead cut short the drama program that led into the concert special; they had been heavily advertising the concert as being on at Sunday at 9pm for over a month, I would have thought it would have made more sense to cut the lead-in short and show the heavily promoted special at the time it had been promoted for.

(The pre-taped concert special was scheduled to run 9pm-11pm but CBS was running late due to golf and began airing it at 9:32 instead.)

Piano Man actually hasn’t been the very last song for some time - since he resumed playing in 2013, it most often is the last song of the main set. He most frequently closes with You May Be Right nowadays. The CBS broadcast wasn’t shown live and was edited from the March 28th performance at Madison Square Garden; more than a third of the songs performed weren’t included in the TV special, and most of what they did show was not in the original running order.

 

[Jeffrey D]

The national CBS feed carried the entire broadcast but some of the local affiliates opted to switch to local news coverage at 11:30pm. This was probably a pre-existing contractual obligation. I think it’s more baffling that CBS national didn’t instead cut short the drama program that led into the concert special; they had been heavily advertising the concert as being on at Sunday at 9pm for over a month, I would have thought it would have made more sense to cut the lead-in short and show the heavily promoted special at the time it had been promoted for.

(The pre-taped concert special was scheduled to run 9pm-11pm but CBS was running late due to golf and began airing it at 9:32 instead.)

Piano Man actually hasn’t been the very last song for some time - since he resumed playing in 2013, it most often is the last song of the main set. He most frequently closes with You May Be Right nowadays. The CBS broadcast wasn’t shown live and was edited from the March 28th performance at Madison Square Garden; more than a third of the songs performed weren’t included in the TV special, and most of what they did show was not in the original running order.

Thanks for the Piano Man info. Curious choice of You May Be Right ending his shows these days.

 

[Malcolm R]

I think it’s more baffling that CBS national didn’t instead cut short the drama program that led into the concert special; they had been heavily advertising the concert as being on at Sunday at 9pm for over a month, I would have thought it would have made more sense to cut the lead-in short and show the heavily promoted special at the time it had been promoted for.

There was a time when the networks would join the regularly scheduled program "already in progress" to get back on schedule. Seems like they could have done this here with the show preceding the concert.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Thanks for the Piano Man info. Curious choice of You May Be Right ending his shows these days.

It’s a loud, crowd pleasing song that has everyone leaving the building singing and dancing. It works well when you’re there. His encore is now usually 5 songs, mostly his biggest, loudest, fastest hits - it’s often We Didn’t Start the Fire, Uptown Girl, It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me, Big Shot and You May Be Right.

The basic structure of the show at MSG has stayed the same since the residency began although the song choice isn’t identical from night to night. The first hour leans more towards ballads and deeper cuts, the second hour starts mixing in the more well known songs (including ones that weren’t technically singles like Italian Restaurant) and then there’s a half hour encore of uptempo rock and roll songs that were all giant hits.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Italian Restaurant is a classic. I have the Last Play At Shea and the Russia concert from the 80s on BluRay- haven’t gotten around to watching them yet.

The BD of the Russia tour and concert is very good. The included documentary was very interesting.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

This is on Paramount+ for anyone who has that and the streaming quality is better than what I saw on the broadcast. Not sure how long they’re gonna keep it online for.

I was at the show and they did film the whole performance so I’m hoping they will release a concert DVD at some point.

Fun trivia from being at the show: the banner they had made to commemorate the 100th residency performance was wrong the night of the show - it said “100th lifetime performance” rather than “100th consecutive performance” and Billy has already played there more than 100 times in his career - it looks like on the TV special that they superimposed a digital graphic of what the banner should have said over the actual footage of the wrong banner.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Re-airing on 4/19:

CBS Is Turning the Lights Back On for Billy Joel

They will rebroadcast his 100th Madison Square Garden concert special after cutting off “Piano Man.”

www.vulture.com

 

[Jeffrey D]

This is on Paramount+ for anyone who has that and the streaming quality is better than what I saw on the broadcast. Not sure how long they’re gonna keep it online for.

I was at the show and they did film the whole performance so I’m hoping they will release a concert DVD at some point.

Fun trivia from being at the show: the banner they had made to commemorate the 100th residency performance was wrong the night of the show - it said “100th lifetime performance” rather than “100th consecutive performance” and Billy has already played there more than 100 times in his career - it looks like on the TV special that they superimposed a digital graphic of what the banner should have said over the actual footage of the wrong banner.

About how many shows he has played at MSG- I heard somewhere that when his residency comes to an end in July, his last show there will be his 150th at that venue.

 

[Tony Bensley]

Re-airing on 4/19:

CBS Is Turning the Lights Back On for Billy Joel

They will rebroadcast his 100th Madison Square Garden concert special after cutting off “Piano Man.”

www.vulture.com

Thank you for posting this, Josh! I missed almost half the concert by the time I remembered it was on Sunday night!!

CHEERS!

EDIT: PVR now set!!!

 

[Todd Erwin]

The national CBS feed carried the entire broadcast but some of the local affiliates opted to switch to local news coverage at 11:30pm.

This is one of the main reasons why my wife and I have stopped watching network programming off our DVR, and use that as more of a way to let us know that a new episode is available on one of the streaming service we subscribe to. We live in a fairly small market (Reno), and the local affiliates often break into a show a minute late, break away in the middle of a program, and/or end the show early for local commercials and news promos. I have complained to both the local station and the groups that own those stations, yet they deny that they are doing this.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

About how many shows he has played at MSG- I heard somewhere that when his residency comes to an end in July, his last show there will be his 150th at that venue.

That’s correct - the July show will be his 150th lifetime so I guess that makes the one filmed the 146th.

 

[Chip_HT]

CBS really needs to change its thinking when it comes to post-sports programming. They have similar problems most Sundays in the fall, and the biggest problem is their insistence of always showing 60 Minutes in its entirety.

In this case, they should have just used 60 Minutes as a filler between the end of the Masters until 8 or 9 PM, only showing however many segments would have fit.

But the most annoying part of this looks like where it started at 9:32. I'm sure they could have cut a couple of network promos somewhere during the primetime shows to ensure that the programming would end at or before 11:30.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

CBS really needs to change its thinking when it comes to post-sports programming.

But the most annoying part of this looks like where it started at 9:32.

Yeah I agree completely - they’ve been running promos for this since Billy’s appearance at the Grammys, they spent a fortune on billboards and advertisements on their own and other networks, and then 9pm rolls around and it’s not Billy on the air. Not even a chyron on the bottom of the screen alerting viewers the new start time. You’d be forgiven if you tuned in and thought there was no show. I don’t get how that makes any sense.