The View From Scranton

Whoa Billy (In Its Entirety)

(Note: This week's blessed Electric City runs with my take on a Live Idol; thing is it's not all there was to it. Oh, I'm not averse to the cutting (Zeus knows I get a lot windy at most times), but two semi-salient points -- Billy doing Randy and Steve doin' dumb -- need to be mentioned, if only right here. So, right here it is, Whoa Billy in its entirety.)

Whoa Billy

By John Hood


Where do old punks go once they've passed their primetime? Well, if they're Billy Idol, they go back, way back. Back to when then was now. They go for all the gusto they got left, all the gold in the wild world, the brash rash of rank and redolent glory. They go for the throat. The hustle and rustle and stink of the road. What they know and what they know will make 'em go.

They go to the crowd.

Onstage at The Kirby last Wednesday night, Billy Idol went to the crowd and the crowd went wild. Goosey goose bumps tingled the mass of "Flesh," choraled choruses echoed the chanted "Yell," and fisted fists raised hang 'em high for all that mad, glad "Mony."

As if it was 1985 all over again.

Idol raucously concurred. Malcontent to the core, the peroxide punk trashed his laurels and came out swingin' anew, with the Velvet Ramone crunch of "Super Overdrive," stab one of slab now, Devil's Playground. For a so-called has-been hit man, comin' off longshot was a gutsy move. And it proved beyond the shadow of an ol' roustabout doubt that this ionic Idol would be a whole helluva lot more than just some dumb carbon of that Idol.

And what well-defined guts he's got. Lean if not leaner than even his leanest mean (Is there an L.A. trainer in his house?), the Idolized-one packs a sinewed-six of pure unadulterated gall. Fit, furied and tuned like a fine classic, he revs, he rumbles, he glistens and he gleams.

"Overdrive" kicked into his first overground hit, "Dancing with Myself," from the animystic [sic] days when Generation X defied their onanistic own. "Dancing" in turn twirled the crawl of "Flesh for Fantasy," a click for all the chicks and each and every those who dig them.

The gimme-give and shimmee-take continued apace with "Body Snatcher" (dedicated to Dime Bag) and "White Wedding" (cited circa Danceteria), "Scream" (predicated on fellatio) and "Eyes without a Face" (eradicated into Eros). A frisky, risky four-step between all the now that then can muster.

Settled, if a sweat-soaked steam engine could ever be settled, Billy strapped-on an acoustic and Hollied his way through "Sweet 16" (nodded to right-cool Ed of Homestead's immaculate Coral Castle), "Plastic Jesus" (a sort of accidental protest song), and "Cherie Cherie" (where Idol does Diamond one rung sidewise).

Then, in an uncharacteristically-charactered act of unadulterated candor, Idol let the steam stream into the hurt and the heart and the heavy of Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927," a remarkable song that marked a remarkable moment. In fact it was the high point of a peak performance – mountain deep and deft, and not in the least bit spoiled by the cribsheet Billy had a helper hand him. (After all, who wants to get those words wrong?)

Had he followed with either "Lady Do or Die" or "Summer Running," the two new tracks of tears that near Newman's greatness, we would've lied happily ever after.

But he didn’t. Instead. Billy took a breather and left in his spotlight a void of stale air -- or, rather, hair. We mean of course the monumentally coifed would-be guitar god Steve Stevens, who chose to strip Billy's bout of poignance with a flaring glare of pompous virtuosity. The six-slinger's histrionic interlude might've been masterful, almost impressive even, but it was unnecessary. Doubly unnecessary was when Stevens went inexplicably Zep. We bet the Bromley's were spinning in their exile.

But null lulls can last only so long and this null lull was no exception. "Rat Race" explained it away to a Steppenwolfing "L.A. Woman" (suitably recast as "PA Woman"), "Evil Eye" brought the "World Coming Down" to a smashing crash, and the die-hards got their hard on the old school favorite "Ready Steady Go," (though they might've softened by the soporific guitar solo).

Then it was nothing but a barrage of Monsters -- "Rebel Yell," "Kiss Me Deadly," "Mony Mony,"— done-up in arena drag and marred only by some strange Molly Hatchett-like guitar boogying. For a minute there we thought the meatiest Vegas bar band on Earth had posted up in the cut. It was that rockist.

The crackerjack laughs though gave it away -- this was all good cartoon fun, a none too serious display of none too serious stirrings. The better to beat you, my dear. Best was Idol himself – aglare, aflutter and aglow – with a dynamite-eyed smile that never once left his bedeviled face, even when smacked into that patented snarl. He was happy. He was hilarious. He was enjoyful. As if he himself was surprised he's still here to hero. But here he was. And right there. For some two hours and fifteen minutes, the hardest working punk in show business was at it and at it again. The old boy couldn't help it; it's in his blessed bones.

posted by John Hood. @ 11:05 PM