Location: Ljubljana / Hala Tivoli / Slovenia
Date: Tuesday, 24.06.2014
While the Slovenian media were buzzing with news from the country’s biggest prison and from football-mad Brazil, rock fans had something completely different on their minds. Almost to the day four years after his first show here, British rock star Billy Idol came back to Ljubljana. The 58-year-old music icon has somehow held on to the popularity he won in the early eighties all the way to today. What’s more, sticking to the path he laid out long ago still fills venues for him, and so the hall under Rožnik hill greeted him with a packed house of six thousand people.
So what’s changed in Billy Idol’s camp since his last visit? Honestly, not much. The man is working on a new studio album due this fall, to be released alongside an autobiography, which will no doubt serve up some juicy tidbits from Idol’s career, now almost four decades long.
The show kicked off with no opening act, a few minutes before half past eight in the evening. Starting with a new track, Postcards from the Past, which will land on the upcoming album, Idol soon spiced up the night with some of the most recognizable tunes of his career: Cradle of Love, Dancing With Myself and Flesh for Fantasy had a good chunk of both stands on their feet right from the start, and the borderline ecstatic support from every corner of the hall never let up until the very end. Billy’s backing crew was made up of old friends Steve Stevens and Billy Morrison on guitars, bassist Stephen McGrath, plus two newcomers to the lineup, drummer Erik Eldenius and keyboardist Paul Trudeau.
Even with sixty creeping up on him, Billy Idol stays true to the image that made him famous. That appealing mix of charm and machismo, backed up by the look of a bad boy that got him heavy rotation on MTV way back when, is alive and well and still hypnotizes the crowds, especially when Billy pulls out one of his trademark facial grimaces. The multiple costume changes (and stripping down) showed that dust isn’t exactly piling up on his home gym equipment, and judging by that chiseled body and nonstop energetic stance, you could easily knock a decade off his age.
As the show moved into its middle stretch, Love and Glory and One Breath Away, both new additions to the live set, served as a showcase of the waters Billy is swimming in these days. The razor-sharp guitar work of Steve Stevens and Billy Morrison proved he’s still chasing the uncompromising sound Idol staked out with his previous record, “Devil’s Playground”, maybe the heaviest album of his entire solo career. No going soft here, then! After the Generation X number Ready Steady Go, Billy grabbed an acoustic guitar and tossed in another sex-drenched little hit, Sweet Sixteen. His fingers were nowhere near as smooth on the fretboard as, say, those of longtime guitarist Stevens, but Billy’s instrumental turn predictably drew waves of cheers. The biggest stars have the whole philosophy of show business wrapped around their little finger, so they know exactly when and with which bones to throw the audience for the reaction they want. Billy’s banter between songs was packed with similar crowd-pleasing clichés, but given the enormous mileage, you can hardly blame him for being bored with the same old stage phrases.
In the second half of the show, fans of guitar virtuoso Steve Stevens, recognizable from a mile away by his lavish hairdo that hasn’t changed much in three decades, got more and more of what they came for. The flirtation with a light flamenco pattern in the intro to yet another well-known hit, Eyes Without a Face, was just a warm-up for a longer solo spot, by now traditionally woven into the cover of The Doors’ LA Woman. Stevens showed off a wide palette of his skills throughout the night, and playing behind his back was of course not left out, but the dose of guitar wizardry was just right, so his boss’s back didn’t miss the glare of the spotlights for too long.
Billy’s live power peaked as the main set closed with Rebel Yell, when the crowd belting out that anthemic chorus at times drowned out the Tivoli hall’s PA, which held up well that night. For the encore, only Billy and his right-hand man Steve Stevens came out at first and unfolded the acoustic motif of White Weding, a hit more than thirty years old, which the rest of the band then turned into its familiar roaring form. To say goodbye after an hour and three quarters, Idol served up his cover of Tommy James’ Mony Mony. Despite the party-ready delivery, the ending, identical to last time, raised the question of why the hell Billy sticks to such a long-established routine instead of swapping it for a bit more artistic freedom. Either way, in the end it has to be said that this new rock spectacle satisfied the appetite of a packed Tivoli hall, even if, compared to the concert four years ago, the Slovenian crowd deserved a bit more freshness in how the eighties hits were served up.
author: Urban Bolta
photos: Sebastijan Videc
Setlist:
1. Postcards from the Past
2. Cradle of Love
3. Dancing with Myself (Generation X song)
4. Flesh for Fantasy
5. Love and Glory
6. One Breath Away
7. Ready Steady Go (Generation X song)
8. Sweet Sixteen
9. Whiskey And Pills
10. Eyes Without a Face
11. L.A. Woman (The Doors cover) Guitar Solo
12. King Rocker (Generation X song)
13. Love Like Fire (Generation X song)
14. Blue Highway
15. Rebel Yell
—encore—
16. White Wedding
17. Mony Mony
