Is Billy Joel secretly one of the biggest badasses in classic rock? Here’s a man with a career lined with hits, and then he just decides to walk away from recording new music after 1993’s River Of Dreams. A new Billy Joel album, regardless of its quality, would make a ton of money. But Joel’s already loaded, so he sticks around, plays shows, and does whatever he wants. Sure, he’s been criticized in the past for schmaltz or whatever, but compared to last year’s way-too-slick Elton John set on Sunday, there was something charming about Joel. He’s still a showman, but he’s also still some dude from Long Island. He plays a lot of hits, but not all of them, because he has too many to fit into one show. But then he’ll gesture at the pit in front of the stage and ask “Are these the rich people tickets?” and then taunt “It’s OK, just rattle your jewelry,” as if he isn’t the richest guy at the Farm. He’s the kind of guy who lets his guitar tech come out and karaoke “Highway To Hell” during the final set of Bonnaroo 2015. (The crowd really loved this by the way.)

By Sunday night at Bonnaroo, you can start to feel a little defeated. People sat laid down in near-total dark throughout the crowd; others droopily twirled glowing balloons whose glow was beginning to flicker. Others still lit up joints throughout Joel’s set, like some bit of defiance and refusal to let Bonnaroo end. The genius of what Bonnaroo does on Sundays, though, is they book universals. Artists whose music is just in the atmosphere. Bonnaroo has a few different versions of itself within every year now, but no matter what kind of Bonnaroo attendee you are, you can go to a field and have a good time at a set like Joel’s. “Movin’ Out,” “Big Shot,” “Allentown,” and like, every other song inspired festival-wide sing-alongs, providing one big communal ending to it all. “It’s a pretty good crowd for a Sunday,” Joel sang during “Piano Man,” slightly changing its lyrics. It was good to see him, to forget about life for a while.