Tony Monaco builds piano cases. If you don’t know what a piano case is, it’s a wooden structure that houses an electric keyboard to make it look like a real piano.
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It’s a tribute to a piano, if you will.
Monaco’s craft is an apt metaphor for his other life as the frontman of Turnstiles, a Billy Joel tribute band set to open for Vampire Weekend at the Mecca of Billy Joel concert venues: Madison Square Garden.
When Vampire Weekend posted the flier for their Only God Was Above Us tour, a lot of people, present company included, probably thought that “Turnstiles” opening for them in New York was a typo, and the Baltimore hardcore-band-turned-festival-staple found themselves on yet another big-name bill.
Nope, it’s a Billy Joel tribute band from Florida, and Monaco couldn’t believe it either. Well, actually, he didn’t really know what to think when he got the call from someone from the Vampire Weekend camp, because he didn’t know who Vampire Weekend was at first.
“She basically said that they wanted to bring us to New York in support of Vampire Weekend. I didn’t know who they were,” he says. “She was talking about October. Vampire Weekend. I’m thinking it’s some sort of Halloween Festival. I had no idea.”
He’s done his homework since then.
“I actually like them,” he says. “And, I mean, I’m not humoring them. They’re really good. They’re unique. They’re really good. I’m impressed.”
Monaco’s been playing in bands since his first Styx-esque bands of the ‘80s. He played in a few cover acts for parties and weddings before settling into what he calls an “age-appropriate” role with Turnstiles. He talks about veteran arena acts and household names like Vampire Weekend and Turnstile the same way he talks about “rival” tribute bands or other local acts on the Florida scene. He throws out approval within reason. And despite his Pittsburgh roots and Florida home, Monaco’s low rasp and vocal patterns wouldn’t be out of place on a Sopranos bit-character. Maybe it’s the time he spent living on Long Island between the two. He doesn’t gush, and clearly sees value in his praise. They’re all just working bands in the same business, just in different rooms.
Monaco asked what venue the Vampire Weekend show would be at. The voice on the other end of the phone said, “MSG.”
“And I went, ‘Hang on a second. By ‘MSG,’ you mean the little theater they have there?’” Monaco says. He had just been to MSG in November to take his fiancée to see the real Billy Joel perform, and saw a line for the smaller, 5,000-cap theater attached to the iconic venue. “But she says, ‘No, no, no. It’s in the main arena.’ I went, ‘OK, well, that’s interesting, to say the least.’ She says, ‘So are you willing to do it?’ I said, ‘Yeah! Hell yeah!’”
Hell yeah.
Suddenly Monaco and his band were signing NDAs to keep the tour info from leaking out and contracts with what he said was good money but “not Vampire Weekend money.”
So how did Turnstiles, a tribute band headquartered in Florida with markedly bad SEO in 2024, get on Vampire Weekend’s radar?
He knew there was a similarly named band after getting texts from excited friends thinking he was playing Seth Meyers. After clarifying with Vampire Weekend’s management that they didn’t accidentally email the wrong band, he got a confidence boost that they wanted him and his band.
Monaco says that it turns out the guys in Vampire Weekend are “big fans”—of Billy Joel, that is. And Turnstiles isn’t the only tribute band on the tour. Maya Rudolph’s Prince tribute band Princess is playing two dates in Chicago. But, again, that’s famed comedic actress Maya Rudolph. The name Tony Monaco has less pull—for now.
But after surveying the Billy Joel tribute band landscape, Vampire Weekend’s people landed on Turnstiles.
“They ‘scoured’—this is their word—‘scoured the Internet,’ and they found us, along with some other people who I know that are very good too,” Monaco says. “They thought that we were one of the best. But the thing that really sold them was our energy. They loved the band’s energy.”
The tribute band world is different from other band rivalries. Oasis and Blur had their similarities, but they weren’t literally playing the same songs as each other. Tribute bands are just regional variants of each other in a way. Rival gangs selling the same product fighting for territory. Monaco is diplomatic and respectful of his competition, many he considers friends, but he’s also confident in what he’s got going, so he doesn’t seem that surprised that after the Vampire Weekend crew scoured the Internet, they landed on Turnstiles.
“We’re all pros. We all know what we’re doing,” he says. “I think I have a great band. […] And there are times where I listen to something come on, like if we do something down here and they use a live clip of the band, and if I catch it and I don’t know that it’s us, sometimes I think it’s Billy. And I go, ‘Oh, shit, that’s us!’”
Turnstiles specializes in a very specific Billy Joel experience, rather than a to-the-note faithful adaptation of the songs. That’s what separates a tribute band from a cover band, according to Monaco. He has the agency to put his own spin on things, interact with the crowd as himself a little as much as a Joel-influenced persona, and create a show rather than blend into the background while people mingle at a bar or wedding or fucking wine mixer on an island off the coast of L.A.
The money’s better in the tribute band world too, he says.
And Monaco is a businessman. He works in business development for collision centers, where he travels and advises on efficiency and profitability. He’s brought that knowledge to his band, professionalizing and leveling the whole operation up when he can, like leasing a truck rather than just letting the guys individually drive their gear to the shows like the competition does. And, after this MSG pull, you can bet he’s re-thinking Turnstiles’ price tag. He’s not in Ezra Koenig’s tax bracket, so every logistical piece of show business and civilian life is meticulously taken into account.
“I evaluate constantly because, like anything else, I don’t know anything that you deal with that you haven’t been paying more for,” he says. “We’re all paying more.”
He’s hoping that these MSG shows open some doors for the band now. Bigger gigs with bigger paychecks, and maybe even another shot at opening for Vampire Weekend—again of his vision and experience in the music business, with the emphasis on the “business,” as in working, shows.
The MSG shows go well, they get along, they keep in touch, and then …
‘Hey, Tony, one of our openers backed out. Somebody got COVID. They can’t travel. Can you guys do it?’” he hypothesizes. “I mean, it could happen.”
It could happen. What’s more realistic is his other scenario, where the suits at MSG take notice and start doing for him what they’re doing for an Elton John tribute act he knows, who he says works more than any other tribute band he knows thanks to his partnership with LiveNation.
If he can do it, Turnstiles can do it.
“I love the guy,” he says, before offering his grounded take on the competition once more.
“He’s good. He’s not great. He’s not great.”
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