On this day in music history…
In 1992, Billy Joel received his diploma from Hicksville High School in Hicksville, New York. Joel was supposed to graduate 25 years earlier, but he was missing one English credit. Joel was already a working musician at the time, playing at a piano bar, and he had overslept on the morning of an English exam. He made up for the missed exam by submitting essays to the school board, which were accepted. Joel attended the graduation ceremony, and he spoke to the students and the audience.
In 1995, Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder was in the hospital with a case of food poisoning. The band was on their Vitalogy Tour, and they were scheduled to play Golden Gate Park in San Francisco that night. Vedder checked out of the hospital to perform the show, but was so ill that he only made it through seven songs. Vedder went back to the hospital, and Neil Young stepped in to finish the concert with the band. Young and Pearl Jam played songs from his catalog, including multiple songs from his forthcoming Mirror Ball album, which he had already recorded with Pearl Jam. Mirror Ball would be released a couple months later.
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