Daryl Hall & John Oates along with Squeeze will be playing to a full house tonight (February 28th) at New York's Madison Square Garden. Hall & Oates defied expectations when back in 2016, when they sold out the venue after a 30-year-absence from the hallowed “Big Apple” arena. Tonight's gig — with support by KT Tunstall — is a dry run for all three acts' upcoming spring and summer tour.
In advance of the Garden show tonight, Hall & Oates spoke to The New York Post and each was asked the backstory to one of their iconic hits. For 1976's “Rich Girl,” Daryl Hall recalled, “Sara (Allen), my girlfriend at that time, had an old boyfriend who was a rich guy and he came over to the house and was acting pretty strange. And after he left, I sat there and went, 'He’s a rich guy, and he’s gone too far. . . ' Blah, blah, blah. Then I said, 'No, rich guy sounds terrible. I’ll change it to rich girl!”
John Oates looked back on 1982's “Maneater,” remembering, “I got the idea from a beautiful girl who swore like a sailor. The juxtaposition of this beautiful girl with this filthy mouth was just too good to resist. I thought, 'Man, she would chew you up and spit you out.’ But it’s really a metaphor for New York City in the ’80s. The ‘Maneater’ is the city itself. New York City is what’s gonna chew you up.”