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| Billy Idol @ the Mountain Winery (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
There are very few artists who can dream of having 45-year careers in music and even fewer who can stay true to their values and sound, but Billy Idol is certainly one of those rarified artists. The iconic punk rock legend visited Saratoga's Mountain Winery last night and reinforced that he's still able to bring the rock. And along with long-time guitarist and co-conspirator, Steve Stevens, along with a backing band that included drums, keyboards, bass, and another guitarist, the Idol-fronted band showed that they can still produce music that hasn't skipped a beat from the Billy's signature sound.
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| Steve Stevens & Billy Idol @ the Mountain Winery (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Considering the show fell on a Wednesday night, I was a bit surprised to see the Winery at near capacity and for me personally, this was the first time I've seen Billy perform since his Philadelphia Spectrum show with Faith No More as opener on September 15, 1990! Make no mistake, Idol still rocks, even at 66 years old! The show started at 8pm with show openers, XULTRA, a duo made up of Brianna Lee and Josh Barrett who played for about 30 minutes and did an excellent job warming up the crowd. With a 30 minute break, Billy and band, took the stage promptly at 9pm and went straight through until the Winery's 10:30pm curfew.
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| Billy Idol @ the Mountain Winery (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
It was fantastic to hear the set lead off with one of Billy's earliest hits from his days fronting Generation X, the song "Dancing with Myself". He followed that with "Cradle of Love", the song that was at the top of the charts when I first saw Billy perform back in Philly. And as you'll see from the setlist below, the night included new tracks from his upcoming EP The Cage (due out Sept. 23rd) , the song "Cage", along with "Running from the Ghost".
Before "Ghost", Billy spoke about how he wrote the song during the Covid lockdown and was meant to allow him to put past indiscretions to bed. Particularly his extensive drug use when he was younger. Billy joked that Stevens will wakes up from dreams thinking he's still high -- at which point Steve interjected that he felt high right now on stage! Billy responded by saying that 'he probably was high, you're in Saratoga, come on!'
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| Steve Stevens & Billy Idol @ the Mountain Winery (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Besides Billy's hits, which were obviously highlights from the night, Stevens was given the opportunity for a guitar solo near the mid-point of the set. What was interesting about the solo, was that Steven's guitar was plugged into something that triggered accompanying string sounds that made his guitar playing all the more striking. I was also impressed with the tones he was getting out of the guitar, an acoustic that didn't have much of a deep body to it, but still sounded absolutely great. Steve included a bit of Zeppelin's "In the Evening" along with the opening bars of "Stairway" within his solo. It was a great little break from the Idol classics and gave Billy a slight breather before coming out to follow-up with the crowd favorite "Mony Mony".
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| Steve Stevens & Billy Idol @ the Mountain Winery (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Towards the end of the set, Stevens had another shot in the spotlight when at the end of "Blue Highway" he decided to take us all on the highway to Kenny Loggin's "Danger Zone" -- playing the main riffs from that famous Top Gun song. It could have easily capped off the night, but instead, it lead into "Rebel Yell" before the band broke for a quick encore.
It amazes me that I haven't been able to catch Billy in the years since his show back in 1990, but I'll be sure to catch him again the next time he's here in the Bay Area and I hope you'll do the same!
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