YOU CRY MORE MORE MORE FOR BILLY IDOL? WIND BACK WEDNESDAY AGREES WITH A REBEL YELL

Maybe Steve Stevens' shirt is too loud even for Billy Idol

Elsewhere on this site today there’s a review of a concert at the weekend which coulda shoulda been better, but also just about rescued itself. Cut Copy seemed unsure how far to go for an audience not looking like they wanted the boat pushed too far. But what if they did?

It’s not a question Billy Idol ever needs to ask. As Wind Back Wednesday finds in this 2015 concert, even at a venerable age, in questionable clothing, the man who inspired Buffy’s bete noir, Spike, goes appropriately inappropriate and hang the consequences.

Keeping him company that tour was a band opening the show which might legitimately have claims to the main slot, not merely the support act. But in the midnight hour, and earlier, maybe Billy’s promoters knew a thing or two about B. Idol and C. Trick.

                         _______________________________.

BILLY IDOL and CHEAP TRICK

Qantas Credit Union Arena March 19, 2015

WHERE EXACTLY to look?

At Billy Idol’s impressively sculpted body displayed under an open jacket or later an open shirt (gee, thanks for making the rest of us middle aged men look pathetic even if we don’t have inappropriately bleached blonde hair sir)?

At the audience fist pumping with furious commitment and no evident hipster irony (nice mullet young man behind me: that’s dedication to a cause predating you by a couple of decades)?

At Steve Stevens, a man who hasn’t met a rock guitarist pose he doesn’t love (soloing on his knees, behind his back, with his teeth) a rock cliche he hasn’t plumbed (a “sensitive” solo moment which asked, no, begged, to be Spinal Tap-titled, Lick My Love Pump, then later a Spanish guitar-style solo with bonus Led Zeppelin references) or an ‘80s birds’ nest/reach for the sky hairstyle that he won’t teeter under (according to a tweeted response from Mrs Stevens later that evening “I assure you it’s all real”)?

Maybe at the floor with a bit of embarrassment as Billy bellows “we’re going to keep things rocking in Sydney tonight” as if declaiming William Wallace’s battle cry speech in Braveheart (to which the audience, naturally, roars as if about to fling up a kilt and moon yon Englishmen), sings of his intention to "rock the cradle of love" (wha? Best not to ask.), relates the story of the Latvian named Ed whose broken heart inspired Sweet Sixteen (“we’re going to bring it down for a second,” he says huskily in introducing it) and thanks us for “making my life so f...ing great” (and probably meaning it)?

Or at your own stupidly grinning face, revelling in the dumb-dumb-but-fun fun?

The Bun E-less Cheap Trick. Rick Neilsen present but not pictured.

Earlier Cheap Trick had confirmed they were appropriately the support act tonight. A more substantial career, more “credibility” and the still impressive voice of Robin Zander nonetheless faltered on too many make-weight songs and that oater of an ‘80s power ballad they didn’t even write, The Flame, when their pop rock brilliance - the trio of I Want You To Want Me, Dream Police and Surrender - was kept from us til the end.

Billy Idol by contrast had nothing to lose but his shirt. And even that went early. Leaving us pop-punk in the bounce of Dancing With Myself and its very close cousin, Ready Steady Go; pop-operatic melodrama in the zombie apocalypse love song, Eyes Without A Face, and its distant relative, Flesh For Fantasy; and spirited shouty-pop stupidity in the paternal twins Rebel Yell and White Wedding.

Look, over there: is it brilliant parody? Is it unaware mockery? Is it rubbish? No. Or yes. Or ... who cares? In the words of William Idol, “come on! .... start again.”

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