An amazing collaboration that no one could have predicted: on Wednesday none other than Olivia Rodrigo was brought on stage during a Billy Joel concert at Madison Square Garden (MSG) in New York City.
“I’m going to bring up a young musician,” Joel said. “She’s a triple Grammy winner. She won the Billboard 2022 Woman of the Year award. She’s got the American Music Award. She’s got all kinds of awards. She’s very talented. I like her music, and so do my kids. She’s very talented. Please say hello to Olivia Rodrigo.”
Then Rodrigo came on stage - and while younger audience members couldn’t believe what was happening, some slightly older fans of Joel, who is now 73 years old, were reportedly bemused as to who this young woman could be.
“Hey, guys! Thank you so much for having me, Billy,” she said. “I’m such a huge fan, and I kind of wrote this next song about you.”
The duo then sang Rodrigo’s April 2021 single Deja Vu, which was shared in advance of her debut album Sour’s May 2021 release. The lyrics to the song go: “I’ll bet that she knows Billy Joel / ‘Cause you played her Uptown Girl / You’re singing it together.”
After that rendition, Joel and Rodrigo then sang Uptown Girl.
Joel, aka the Piano Man, has been playing a monthly show at MSG since January 2014. He was set to celebrate his 74th consecutive monthly performance in March 2020, but this incredible track record was halted by the pandemic. He picked up his slot again in November 2021.
This isn’t the first time by any means that Joel has brought a guest on stage - past guests include Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry. Most famously, the American singer has shared a stage with Elton John for their celebrated Face to Face tour, which they conducted every couple of years between 1994 and 2010.
Rodrigo, on the other hand, went on her first concert tour, the Sour Tour, this spring and summer. She starting in Portland in April, toured around the US and Europe and ended in London in July. The 19-year-old singer shot to fame only recently with her January 2021 debut single Drivers License. It went straight to number one and stayed at that spot for eight weeks, and Rodrigo hasn’t looked back.
Speaking to Billboard in February, Rodrigo said: “A really beautiful thing about songwriting is watching songs that are so personal to you go out into the world and kind of take on another life. So performing the songs now is even more special than it was when I was writing them in my bedroom, because they now have so many other people’s stories intertwined within them, too.”
