Elvis Costello Makes Surprise Appearance at Billy Joel MSG Show

Elvis Costello was the latest surprise guest during the Dec. 19 Billy Joel residency show at Madison Square Garden.

Costello joined The Piano Man on stage and performed "Pump It Up," with Joel backing him on piano. The two then dueted on Joel's song "Allentown." Footage of the performance can be seen here.

Costello is just the latest in a long ling of cameos during Joel's historic MSG residency. Keep scrolling to see a list of just some of our favorite cameos over the years.

Joel announced in June that he would be ending his Madison Square Garden residency in July 2024. The final show has been announced for July 25, 2024, which will be Joel's 150th career performance at the legendary venue.

The remaining MSG residency shows are as follows:

-January 11, 2024
-February 9, 2024
-March 28, 2024
-April 26, 2024
-May 9, 2024
-June 8, 2024
-July 25, 2024

Per Ultimate Classic Rock, Joel said during a June 2023 press conference about the end of his residency, "I'm kind of flabbergasted that it lasted as long as it did. My team tells me that we could continue to sell tickets, but ten years ... 150 shows -- all right already!"

Many residencies often stick to the same setlist every night. While most of Joel's residency setlists feature his biggest hits, there's some variation in nearly every show. According to Joel, that is done by design.

In a May 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, Joel explained how he usually likes to create a setlist that features the hits and popular album tracks. However, after reading an article about him in The New Yorker titled "The 33 Hit Wonder," he decided to try and do a setlist of nothing but his hits. While he admitted it felt different for him, Joel also said, "But I kinda like just going bang, bang, bang, bang, hit, hit, hit, hit. By the end of the show, 'Hey, that was a pretty good set list.'"

Billy Joel celebrates his birthday on May 9! While his long-running residency at New York City's Madison Square Garden has been put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, it's currently slated to pick back up in November 2021

Since his residency began in January 2014, Joel has always tried to keep fans guessing during his monthly MSG shows and has welcomed a variety of special guests. In honor of The Piano Man’s birthday, here are seven of our favorite residency cameos.

Joel’s August 2014 residency show saw him dust off “Uptown Girl,” which, of course, is about his ex-wife Brinkley, but the audience blew up once they saw the supermodel on the jumbotron in attendance.

The Tonight Show host joined Joel at his 25 residency gig in January 2016, where he did his best Mick Jagger impersonation for a performance of “Start Me Up.”  It’s equal parts ridiculous and fun.

Considering Johnson’s somewhat recent retirement from the stage, this performance of “You Shook Me All Night Long” from Joel’s December 2014 residency show is all the more poignant.

Indiana’s favorite son made his second guest appearance during Joel’s residency at the March 2017 show.  This time around, Mellencamp and Joel dueted on “Authority Song” to a raucous crowd.

During Joel's January 2018 MSG show, Gramm and Jones surprised the capacity crowd and performed two of their biggest hits, “Urgent" and “Cold As Ice.”

For Joel's 100th show ever at MSG, The Boss joined The Piano Man on stage performed “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and “Born To Run”

John Fogerty joined Joel for two songs during his March 2019 MSG gig: Creedence Clearwater Revival classics “Up Around The Bend” and “Fortunate Son.”