CBS and Billy Joel's Performance

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Is anyone else livid at what CBS did to Billy Joel's 100th performance at Madison Square Garden? It's all that's been talked about on the radio since Monday morning following the disastrous performance where they cut off the song "Piano Man" in order to broadcast the local news. Well, after hearing so much riff raff about it and having experiencing myself the utter disappointment that followed after staying up until 11:30 to watch this concert which had been advertised for almost a month, I decided to look into it a little bit more on the internet. What I found was both shocking and upsetting. Despite being advertised as a live concert to be aired in its entirety, it wasn't either of those. The actual concert took place on March 28th and was then rearranged by the TV network to fit in commercials. I knew something was up when I didn't hear the songs "Uptown Girl", "Big Shot", and "We Didn't Start the Fire" as those are three of Billy Joel's most famous classics and concert staples. As it turns out, those songs were part of an encore along with the songs "You May be Right" and "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" that was performed at the live show by Billy. However, CBS decided to cut out the actual encore in its entirety and only wanted to make room for 2 of the encore songs to be broadcast, but not as an encore. They choose the latter 2 mentioned and sort of "pieced" them into the broadcast after commercials so it would appear like part of the natural setlist. Other famous songs eliminated included "Don't Ask me Why" and "The Longest Time". Also, CBS made a huge deal about how Billy Joel is notorious for having surprise guest performers on his shows and even listed several of them. They then announced that Sting was going to be playing a song with Billy Joel. CBS only broadcast a song called "Big Man on Mulberry Street" which I found to be odd, since Billy Joel's guests always perform a hit of their own. Sure enough, I found out today that Sting actually did perform "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" which happens to be one of my favorite songs by the Police. This was also cut out by CBS. This broadcast also had a lengthy commercial break every 1-2 songs.

I think what CBS did to the fans of Billy Joel as well as Billy Joel himself was absolutely disgusting! I cannot even believe the network decided what songs WE the fans of Billy Joel should need and want to hear from this performance. I'll have everyone know, that "Uptown Girl" and "We didn't Start the Fire" are 2 of my all time favorite Billy Joel songs. CBS had no right to rearrange the order of this man's performance setlist and cut out the songs they felt weren't important for us to hear in order to make room for commercials. I realize commercials are essential in a TV broadcast. However, CBS should have allotted 3 hours for the broadcast, not 2 so that they could fit in the entire concert as advertised. In addition, the incompetents who work for the network decided to air this program on the same day as the Master's Golf tournament, which is why the delay happened which caused the program to be cut off before Billy Joel's bow. Plus, keep in mind that at the time of broadcast, we didn't officially know that "Piano Man" was the last song as those other above mentioned songs had not been played.

CBS plans to rectify the situation by rebroadcasting the show this Friday. This doesn't make up for it in my opinion. It's just going to be the same watered down, rearranged piece of crap program with commercials, except 2 minutes longer.
That being said, I saw Billy Joel 6 years ago at Fenway Park in Boston. Billy Joel is an extremely talented performer, so when I saw this concert being advertised, I was really excited to watch it and even stayed up checking the channel every few minutes until almost 10 to make sure I didn't miss it. When I saw Billy Joel the setlist was 28 songs and he had 2 guests, Peter Wolf from the Jay Giles Band and Joe Elliot from Def Leopard. Peter Wolf played "Centerfold" and Joe Elliot played "Pour Some Sugar on Me." Upon checking the official setlist for the concert that was aired on TV, it was supposed to be 25 songs. My guess is only roughly 16 of those songs were aired on TV. I'm so mad about this that I almost want to boycott CBS in its entirety, except that I do watch other programs on Paramount plus. However, if there is a way to get in touch with CBS to let them know what I think I would like to write them a strongly worded letter or something.

I heard about this and it's terrible! Why advertise a concert and then show bits and pieces of it? That just seems wrong.

Yes! Everyone keeps saying this was as bad as the 'Heidi" incident on TV. Of course, I'm not old enough to have lived through that, but based on what people told me about it, this was just as bad if not worse. What an embarrassment to Billy Joel and to his fans who believed they were getting a full concert experience!

It's as if they don't understand that fans care about the concert as a whole and its continuity, and it's not just some light, distracting entertainment that you can just see some of here and there. Being a fan of a musician goes deep.

I don't think I know the Heidi incident.

Heidi Game

Also in 2012 NBC cut away well before the ending of the Closing Ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics.

Who is going to rewatch the entire concert again just to catch the last song? Hopefully the last song will be put on youtube but it won’t be the same. It will be one song that will not be the crescendo of the concert.

I recommend his concert films Last Play at Shea and Billy Joel: Live at Yankee Stadium

Nope.  It was just another non-event featuring a has-been performer on a generic broadcast media network.

I've noticed that if CBS is broadcasting a sporting event earlier in the afternoon, that messes with everything after 60 Minutes until the news hour (11/10pm). This means shows on Sunday evenings (like the Billy Joel concert) are often started in the middle or otherwise truncated in order to fit in whatever time remains after 60 Minutes finishes late.

I've never seen those, but I'll definitely check them out! As for the concert rerun, the way they promoted that was awful too! On Thursday night they kept running commercials saying something along the lines of "We know you loved it so much, you've just got to see it again! Watch Billy Joel the encore performance, Friday 9/8c." This was completely untrue on so many levels. First off, nobody loved it because it was a mish-mashed concert that wasn't live nor complete with the last song cut off early. Second, it shouldn't be called the encore concert when 3/5 of the encore songs were deleted entirely from the show and the other 2 were pieced in to the regular setlist. Come on CBS, just put some big adult pants on and admit your mistake!

That sounds frustrating, they didn't even play uptown girl? I mean granted the main reason I like that song is cause it was featured on The Boys, which is a show I like and highly recommend but it does have gore/violence that can be a bit simular to Quentin Tarantino movies so wouldn't recommend it to people that are bothered by that sort of thing. But had I watched that concert on CBS I would have been dissapointed if they didn't include it to.

That said currently my boyfriend paid for cbs but it's just so we can watch the final season of star trek discovery, but so they have one of the best shows ever on that channel, but are s**t at broadcasting a concert. I suppose stephen colbert is ok to, but idk me and my boyfriend liked his show better during covid where he was just filming it from a cozy office.

Nope. Billy Joel played "Uptown Girl" during his encore at the LIVE concert he played, but that was one of the 3 songs cut entirely from the TV broadcast. The other 2 songs cut were "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "Big Shot." Those are 3 of his all time biggest hits! The 2 that were kept from the encore and "pieced" into the regular setlist were "You May be Right" and "Still Rock and Roll to Me." While I do like those 2 songs a lot, I don't think it was right to cut out the other 3. Uptown girl has always been one of my favorite songs by him. The concert ended right in the middle of "Piano Man." Not sure if you're highly familiar with that song, but it's his biggest selling hit with a 5x platinum certification. Also, I can't believe the way they treated Sting from the Police. They cut out his song "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" and only kept "Big Man on Mulberry Street" which isn't even commonly played at Billy Joel's concerts anyway. I get the whole "not wanting to overstep Billy Joel's thunder" thing, but this was ridiculous! Obviously if it was a Billy Joel concert and he invited Sting to perform one of his songs, he wouldn't be offended having it broadcast.