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MUSIC: Billy Idol, Apollo, Wed 30 Jul

David Sue
23/ 7/2008

PUNK music may have started off as a serious matter – all righteous rebellion and kicking against the establishment – but by the time Billy Idol arrived on the scene, it was obvious that punk music had discovered its comic side.

When he first emerged in the late Seventies, Billy Idol was essentially a punk rocker given a Dennis the Menace makeover.

He had the snarl, the leather pants and spiky hair, but none of the real po-faced rebellion.

Of course, some punk rockers hated it – The Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten dismissed Idol as the ‘Perry Como of punk’ – but for everyone else, Billy Idol was a true pop legend with charisma and brilliant pop songs in abundance.

Idol first started off in the punk band Generation X, before going solo and becoming an MTV superstar with such hits as White Wedding and Rebel Yell, cementing his worldwide status as punk rock’s own cartoon caricature.

Most miraculously, this is a cartoon pop star who just keeps on re-animating.

He was written off in the Nineties during the explosion of grunge-rock, but in the last few years, Idol has enjoyed a mini-revival.

The 52-year-old appeared at the Download festival wowing a new generation of younger rock fans, whilst an acclaimed new album Devil’s Playground – his first in 12 years – proved that Billy Idol isn’t as musically two-dimensional as we first thought.

At this week’s Apollo show, both new and old Billy Idol fans will surely be chanting (as his hit goes) ‘more, more, more’.