Billy Idol’s first appearance in Athens came after a 25-year delay. If the response by his fans is nowadays more than overwhelming, just imagine what the situation would be if he had done a show back in the 80s when he was an absolute idol! On the other hand, The Strangles have visited our country many times in the past both when the punk movement was alive and well in Greece but also a few months ago. The hits of both artists are many and big but personally I believe that the most important thing is that they are still relevant and ass-kicking in these difficult times that we are living in (and I am not referring only to the music industry).

When The Strangles hit the stage the place was semi-full and the crowd not so warm. “5 Minutes” and “Walk On By” didn’t alter the situation but when the band decided to play “Always The Sun”, the crowd almost immediately recognized the tune and the first smile was evident in the faces of the band members on stage. Jean-Jacque Burnell was the one who moved constantly and danced on stage while the new frontman Baz Warne was communicative. We were treated, as it was expected after all, with some of the biggest hits of the band like “Golden Brown”, “All Day And All Night”, “Nice ‘N’ Sleazy”, “No More Heroes”, “Peaches”, “Skin Deep” and “Duchess” while even more fans were making their entrance into the venue. The Stranglers gave me the impression that they were faced with the challenge (or the mission) of winning over a crowd that was mainly there to see Bill Idol. While this may seem a somehow easy case due to the similarity of the two acts’ sound, I must say that The Stranglers didn’t succeed in doing so, at least in an absolute degree. They earned the applause but they didn’t drive us crazy thus proving to be a good but almost stiff opening band.

The man with the “bad boy” image that was so familiar in the youth of the 80s was at last on stage, in front of his fans. Right from the beginning, with the powerful “Ready Steady Go”, Billy Idol prepared us all for what he was about to unleash on stage with the help of a bunch of really capable and respectable musicians. Billy Idol still remains the eternal 20-year old guy with the punkish style and look, the incurably outrageous performer with his fist up in the air and the simply sensational and uplifting voice. He was running up and down the stage, he was showing some flesh during “Flesh For Fantasy”, he was changing clothes, he was running lots of times at the side of the stage to kiss his girlfriend thus giving Steve Stevens the opportunity to do his things on the guitar. Needless to say that Stevens didn’t waste any time and played almost anything (including some really catchy Spanish melodies).

A highlight of the show was when Idol sang a cappella the Elvis tune “Twenty Flight Rock” that led into “LA Woman” which was paraphrased especially for the occasion to “Athens Woman” with Idol throwing from the stage some paper dishes to the unsuspected crowd! Later on we found out that they were signed by him…Derek Sherinian changed the songs a bit with his space keyboards and the drummer was absolutely bombastic! The setlist was well-balanced and apart from the huge hits (where the fans were out of control) we listened to a lot of Generation-X songs, a great and most welcome surprise, I must add. The absence of “Hot In The City” and “Cradle of Love” was striking, though…all in all, was a sensational live show!

Words by Foteini Paschalidou

Photos by Panagiotis Georgopoulos