Billy Joel returned to Madison Square Garden on Thursday to continue his ongoing monthly residency. The Long Island-based musician reached back into his catalog for a true rarity last night, as he offered up the live debut of “House Of Blue Light,” a song that dates back 30 years.
The tune was originally released on September 27, 1989, as the B-side to Joel’s 1989 mega-hit single “We Didn’t Start The Fire.” While it was left off Storm Front, which was released a few weeks later, it was included on Joel’s 2005 odds and sods compilation My Lives. The Piano Man introduced the song by saying, “This may lay like a lox. This was the flip side to ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire,’ but nobody knows this is a song, not even us. So let’s see if we can pull this off.” Watch Joel perform “House Of Blue Light” for the first time ever below as captured by Jim Powers:
Setlist
Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden
- Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)
- Pressure
- Everybody Loves You Now
- Vienna
- The Entertainer
- Sleeping With the Television On
- Layla
- Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)
- Say Goodbye to Hollywood
- Allentown
- The Ballad of Billy the Kid
- Don’t Ask Me Why
- New York State of Mind
- House of Blue Light
- My Life
- She’s Always a Woman
- Only The Good Die Young
- The River of Dreams
- Take It Easy
- Nessun dorma
- Scenes From an Italian Restaurant
- Piano Man
Encore
- We Didn’t Start the Fire
- Uptown Girl
- It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me
- Big Shot
- You May Be Right