‘Arrow’ will feature Billy Joel!

Arrow, titled ‘Thanksgiving’ we will see a major hail to the famed icon himself.

When Cayden James (Michael Emerson) plans to wreak havoc on the holiday following the arrest of The Green Arrow, he turns his attention towards causing a catastrophe in Star City. His target – A concert venue, specifically that of Billy Joel himself.

Billy Joel, will appear in the hour via actual concert footage thanks to a request from executive producer Marc Guggenheim. Marc was extremely excited, talking about how Billy Joel was one of a few ideas in a recent interview with EW:

“For the Thanksgiving episode of Arrow, we wanted Cayden James to threaten a major event at Star City. A variety of ideas were discussed, but when we settled on a rock concert, I knew it had to be Billy Joel.”

EP Marc Guggenheim has been a long-time fan of Joel,  and he actually initially wrote in the Joel concert in an early draft of the script. Guggenheim ended up writing a letter to the musician to ask permission for using actual footage and a song from the Grammy winner’s oeuvre.

“Having grown up on Long Island — where, as it happens, this episode’s concert footage was taken from — I’ve been a fan of Billy and his music since I was 7 years old. He’s always been an inspiration to me, personally and artistically. I told him as much when I wrote to him to ask for his permission to use his concert footage in our episode and when he agreed, it was one of the happiest days of my career. I chose ‘No Man’s Land’ for the episode because I wanted to use an album track and I’ve always liked how that particular song sounds live.”

Arrow will return on Thursday, November 23rd at 9PM/EST on The CW.