On This Day, July 18, 2008: Billy Joel plays final concert at New York’s Shea Stadium

On This Day, July 18, 2008…

Billy Joel performed the final concert at New York’s historic Shea Stadium ahead of its demolition.

The show, a culmination of a two-night stand at the home of the New York Mets, saw Joel welcoming several guests, including Tony Bennett, Garth Brooks, Steven Tyler, Roger Daltrey and Paul McCartney, who was driven to the stage by the same groundskeeper who drove The Beatles when they played Shea in 1965.

A documentary of the shows, Last Play at Shea, premiered in 2010 at the Tribeca Film Festival and later played at Citi Field, the stadium that replaced Shea. A CD and DVD of the shows were released in March 2011.

And speaking of documentaries, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, a new two-part documentary about the “Piano Man” singer, premieres Friday on HBO, with part two premiering July 25.

The film, directed by Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, is centered around an exclusive interview with Joel, giving insight into “the key moments that forged his character and the events and muses that inspired his music for more than six decades.”

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