Billy Idol

After a hard day of watching numerous rock bands at this year's Download, we had finally arrived at the point where we had to make a crucial decision - it was time to decide which of the headliners we were going to see. Mmmm... tough choice!. We had got the choice of super heavy rock band Napalm Death on the Napster stage, or 80’s icon Billy Idol on the Snickers stage, or we could catch Feeder on the main stage.

Now I personally have seen Feeder numerous times and despite the fact that they are incredible live, I felt that it would be nice to see something different, so that left me with Napalm Death or Billy Idol to choose from...

Seeing as I had never seen Billy Idol before I thought it would be entertaining to catch him playing live as I think it must have been about fourteen years ago when he last played in England (although I could be wrong).

Upon approaching the Snickers tent the crowds were overflowing out of the tent just to catch Billy Idol - my first thought was that he must surprisingly still have a very large following. So as the crowd waited and waited, the chants of ‘Billy, Billy’ echoed throughout the tent. No disrespect to Feeder who were headlining the main stage, but I imagine that there were probably more people in this tent than there were watching Feeder.

Billy eventually arrived on stage to a volcanic eruption of applause from the crazed fans. Immediately you could tell that Billy is one of those rare performers who has that magical X-Factor and can bring a room to life by just being in the same vicinity.

Naturally most of the crowd had turned up just to hear his classic golden oldies, and to his credit he played every one that I could possibly imagine, ‘White Wedding’, ‘Rebel Yell’, ‘Mony, Mony’, to name just a few.

The amazing thing about Mr Idol is that not only is the music of the highest calibre, but his stage theatrics are superb - the amount of passion in his eyes or angst in his face when he is singing is just mind blowing - you get the impression that even today he whole heartedly believes in the lyrics he is belting out.

He was like a man possessed running and jumping from each side of the stage as well as doing the cliché of jumping into the crowd and trying to at least touch hands with every one on the front row.

I’m not old enough to remember Billy’s time with Generation X, but he did play ‘Ready, Steady, Go’, which I instantly recognised as it is one of the true classic punk songs!

Now the audience would have been more than happy with just his own material, but Billy decided to perform a couple of cover versions - Van Halens ‘Jump’ which was done with such enthusiasm that created a tidal wave of revitalising energy throughout the audience. There was also a superb cover version of ‘Who Are You’ originally by The Who - which was amazing to hear and it would be fantastic if Billy Idol releases that has a single.

I think it was the right choice going to see Billy Idol live, the only downside is that Feeder should have swapped places with Mr Idol and let him headline the main stage and Feeder headline the Snickers stage!

Billy Idol is truly a legendary performer!

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