Edinburgh Fringe 2025
The Billy Joel Story
Night Owl Shows
Genre: Live Music, Music, Tribute Show
Venue: Amphitheatre at theSpace @ Symposium Hall
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Going beyond the typical tribute band style, this show is a live musical documentary that pays homage to one of the most influential musicians of our time through on-screen visuals, stories, and authentic renditions of Billy Joel’s hit songs by a powerhouse ensemble.
Review
“Sing us a song you’re the piano man” – the iconic line that 150-million selling recording artist Billy Joel made famous worldwide. Angus Munro and his band takes us on that piano man’s journey from the piano bars to the world stage. This is not a typical tribute show. It is a live musical documentary that pays homage to one of the most influential musicians of our time through on-screen visuals, stories, and authentic renditions of Billy Joel’s hit songs by a powerhouse band.
The band is impressive. Every drum shot is perfectly placed. Every guitar solo is exactly on point. The piano parts are those familiar licks. Close your eyes and you can imagine being at an actual Billy Joel concert.
Angus Munro is on piano and sax. Not only is he a fantastically talented musician, but he has mastered the nuances of Billy Joel’s singing and piano playing style. And his sax solos are a perfect rendition of the famous licks on the recordings. Munro’s debut album “Mirror Man” led to appearances on Scouting For Girls, Corinne Bailey Rae, The Hoosiers and repeat appearances on BBC Radio 4’s “Loose Ends”. He fronts Edinburgh’s premiere funk band Glamour & The Baybes at the world-famous “The Jazz Bar”. Alex Beharrell is a highly accomplished guitarist, vocalist and songwriter who has appeared on Britain’s Got Talent, and providing backup vocals for Paul Weller (the Jam, the Style Council). Lewis Porter on drums is an exceptional freelance session drummer, playing festivals across UK including Boomtown, Victorious, and Glastonbury. Harry Whitty is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, primarily on keyboards but also guitar, brass, and bass.
Billy Joel came from a New York musical family. His father was a classical pianist. Joel started playing piano at four years old, and by high school knew that he wanted a career in music. He wrote in his yearbook that he would rather go to Columbia Records than Columbia University. At 22, he released his first album, Cold Spring Harbour, which was not a commercial success. Disillusioned, Joel moved to Los Angeles, where he played in a piano lounge, inspiring the song “Piano Man”. The show has photos of Joel’s L.A. piano bar, including the piano where he wrote the song. When the band breaks into “Piano Man”, the entire audience sings along.
With a hit on his hands, Joel continued to compose and record, moving through his original pop and blues stylings to more jazz-influenced pieces. The Stranger, released in 1977, landing him three songs in the Top 25 of the Billboard Hot 100, includes “Just The Way You Are,” a wedding staple. In fact, there was a couple from Belgium in the audience who had informed Munro pre-show that this was their wedding song, so Muno gave them a lovely mention. That song earned Joel two Grammy awards. In 2004, Billy Joel received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles.
And the hits kept coming. Joel returned to his New York roots and composed “New York State of Mind” and “Only the Good Die Young”. Rock and roll life was not easy. Joel was in and out of rehab for alcohol abuse. He struggled with depression. He divorced his first wife, Elizabeth Weber Small, who had been his manager (and reportedly took most of his money in the separation) and married supermodel Christie Brinkley. He wrote “Uptown Girl” as a salute to her. It was featured on the album “Innocent Man”. There was a short marriage to Katie Lee. His current wife is equestrian and former finance executive, Alexis Roderick. He has three children.
The show rounds out with more hits: “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, a rapid-fire tongue twister that covers decades of political and other leaders; “She’s Always a Woman”, a beautiful waltz, and “Italian Restaurant’.
Billy Joel’s career has earned him 33 Top 40 hits, 23 Grammy nominations and five Grammy wins since his first solo recording in 1972. In 1990, he was presented with a Grammy Legend Award. Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992, Joel was presented with the Johnny Mercer Award, the organization’s highest honor, in 2001. In 1999 he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He received the Recording Industry Association of America Diamond Award for albums that have sold over 10 million copies. Now 76, Joel is currently off touring while he is treated for normal pressure hydrocephalus, an uncommon condition characterized by fluid buildup inside or around the brain. He expects to return to the concert hall.
In the meantime, the Fringe audiences will be singing at the top of their lungs as Munro and the band lead them in the all-time favourite hits of the man that Munro calls “the best songwriter that ever breathed oxygen”.
