PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORIES
Billy Joel, we loved you just the way you were…in 1974 When pop star Billy Joel performed at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y., in August, it was not without a shoutout about performing at Fredonia. His last appearance on campus was in Dods Hall on Dec. 5, 1974, and tickets were $2 (reportedly less for students). The concert promoted Joel’s “Streetlight Serenade” album, noted Jack Reilly, formerly of Dunkirk, who was at the concert. Alumna Patty Hammond, ’85, ’90, recalls sitting in the bottom row of bleachers, and said, “We went to so many concerts like that — intimate and often featuring acts that hadn’t quite hit the big time yet. There were so many more concerts back then and tickets were amazingly cheap.
SUNY Fredonia brought a lot of great acts here.” Alumnus Bill Glover was a first-year student living in Disney Hall in 1974 and remembers Joel playing for “over three hours, with three encores; his connection with the crowd was electric. When it was over, he headed downtown and closed the bars with us. His (then two) released albums could be heard from dormitory windows every single night through May 1975 and even beyond. At least for me and my fellow Freds, that was the night Billy Joel became a superstar.” Bill also noted that while the tickets read Rockefeller Arts Center, the concert was “relegated to Dods Hall, aka, the old gym.
All the better, I guess, he [Joel] rocked that building so much the [relatively new King] concert hall may not have survived.”
Event ticket courtesy of alumnus Bill Glover.
Scan this QR code to hear Billy Joel's Fredonia shoutout during the 2021 concert.
www.fredonia.edu/alumni
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