It's a pretty big deal on those rare occasions when the "real" musician sits in with the tribute band.

It's an even bigger deal when that musician — a stadium headliner, no less — had recently canceled everything on his schedule and sat out close to a year due to a brain disorder.

That was the case when Billy Joel took the stage Jan. 2 in Florida with the Billy Joel tribute band Turnstiles.

You may have heard about it. What you may not have heard is that the founder and frontman of Turnstiles grew up in Penn Hills.

Tony Monaco came from a musical family, with his father and uncles being members of the vocal group The Del Monacos. Inspired by the Beatles, Monaco gravitated toward guitar and piano and as a teenager formed the band Thrills, which released three albums for the New York label G&P Records and toured with Steppenwolf, Foreigner and Nick Lowe.

"We were compared to Styx, REO Speedwagon — bands from that era," he says. "We were a pop band: hooky songs, things people could sing and dance to. We had a fairly successful run."

With Thrills gone, Monaco ended up in a cover band in Florida for the next 15 years.

"In the beginning, I really enjoyed it because we were playing music from my youth," he says. "We were more of a party band with a very big variety and we were a really strong band."

Around the time people started requesting Drake songs, he knew it was time to change course. A friend requested he take on the music of Billy Joel as he'd done during a brief stint living in Long Island, N.Y.

"I'm a huge Billy Joel fan — have been for close to 50 years — and I said, 'If I'm going to play cover music, I'm going to play music I love.' There are also a lot of New Yorkers down here.

"It took some time to get traction," he says, "but within a year and a half we were making a mark."

In 2024, they got a phone call out of the blue from the Vampire Weekend camp. The indie-rock band wanted Turnstiles to open for them at "MSG" that October. He thought they meant the club there. No, they meant the full Madison Square Garden. Fans seeing the flyer thought it was a typo — that it meant the Baltimore post-hardcore band Turnstile.

"They thought it would really be cool because Billy had ended his residency there, and they're huge Billy Joel fans," Monaco says. "So they said — and this is their words — 'They scoured the internet,' and were checking out all the viable Billy Joel tributes. And they loved our energy, and they hired us. And we did two shows at the Garden with them."

They also did four shows with Vampire Weekend on their tour last year.

As for Joel, Monaco, who once lived in an apartment owned by the mom of Joel's sound engineer, has had some history with the star.

"I've met him multiple times," he says, "everything from a quick hello to sitting at a bar talking for an hour.

"In 2018, my then-wife and I were on Long Island for our godson's wedding. I wanted to stop by his motorcycle shop, and he was there. We talked for about an hour, he gave me a tour,and I told him I did a tribute to him. He said, 'Really?' I asked if he'd ever heard of us. I said the band was called Turnstiles. His face lit up. He said, 'Oh yeah, I know who you guys are. I checked you out. Thanks for keeping my music alive.' And I looked at him and I said, 'I can die now.'"

Good thing he didn't — because it would get a lot better. On Jan. 2, Turnstiles was booked to headline the 30th Anniversary Celebration at Wellington Amphitheater in Wellington, Fla.

Joel, who lives about 15 minutes away, made a surprise appearance with his wife and daughters.

"His wife, Alexis, told me they saw we were playing, and Billy said, 'I want to go.' And there was no phone call to anyone like, 'Hey, I'm going to come. I'm gonna need security,' nothing like that. He just got his family and came. And they told me there was somebody in my dressing room, they told me that somebody wanted to see me. Well, I walk out and Billy Joel and his family are walking in our dressing room. Obviously, we were numb, because who the hell expected that?"

They hatched a plan backstage that Joel, who was down in the crowd of 6,000, would come up on stage for "New York State of Mind."

"But he didn't come up for 'New York State of Mind,' and I had given him the set list. So I started panicking. 'Oh my god, did we say something wrong? Did he leave? Were people bothering him?' I didn't know. He had told me that I could mention that he's there. So I told people, I said, 'You know, we had an experience in our dressing room, and it was none other than Billy Joel himself, and I believe Billy's still here.'

"But we had finished playing 'New York State of Mind.' And I finally saw a little bit of commotion and Billy came up on stage and he chose 'We Didn't Start the Fire.' We did that song, and then the people were chanting 'Billy!' and it was me, my keyboard player and his wife standing with him, and his wife even said it. She says, 'I think you got to do another one.'"

Joel looked at the set list and chose to wrap things up with "Big Shot."

Now, Monaco says, "we're hoping this is the shot in the arm that we were looking for."

Since then, they've appeared on all the morning shows and more bookings are rolling in.

"I was really happy because I was only able to tell my fellow musicians that I met him and this is what I experienced. Well, now they got to do it, and they also got to play with him. We were kidding around about it. I said, 'Well, for 13 minutes, you were Billy Joel's band.'"

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