John Hood - Whoa Billy

Whoa Billy

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.

"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. 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.