Billy Joel Playing Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on New Year’s Eve

Long Islanders rejoice! Billy Joel is playing a New Year’s Eve show at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It will mark his first New York City concert since he closed down Shea Stadium in the summer of 2008.  Ben Folds Five is opening up the show; tickets go on sale November 9th at 10 a.m. 

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“We are proud that Billy has chosen to make Brooklyn his first arena concert in New York City since 2006,” Brett Yormark, CEO of Barclays Center said in a statement. “When we opened Barclays Center 13 months ago, Billy was one of the must-have artists for our building and we are thrilled that he will be ringing in the New Year on Brooklyn’s biggest stage. New York City born and Long Island raised, Billy is an iconic New Yorker and we are looking forward to a memorable evening.”

Billy Joel stepped away from the concert stage in early 2010, partially to recover from double hip replacement surgery. He returned at the 12/12/12 Hurricane Sandy relief benefit show at Madison Square Garden to tremendous critical acclaim, and earlier this year he played the Soundwave Festival in Australia and Jazz Fest in New Orleans.  

Earlier this month, Joel played the Paramount Theater in Huntington, Long Island, to warm up for a brief European tour. The show mixed in huge hits like “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant” and “Piano Man” with deeper cuts like “Blonde Over Blue” and “Stop in Nevada.” “We’re not going to play all hits tonight,” he told the audience early on in the show. “I’m tired of that shit. We want to mix in some other stuff that we haven’t done for a long time.” 

It’s unclear exactly how many more shows Joel plans to perform in America after the New Year’s Eve gig, but a January 7th show at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Florida, is listed on Ticketmaster.