Billy Idol

July 6, 2014

TOUR DIARY #5

ROCKING THE CASTLES OF EUROPE!

The rescheduled show in Belgrade starts off the fourth week of our Summer European tour. Completely rained out yesterday, it’s a totally different story today – blue skies, blazing sun… looks like we’ll actually get this one done tonight! But first of all… “Hurry up and WAIT”!! That’s the universal mating call of the TV Show. We jump into vans and get shuttled over to a TV station (I will confess to still not knowing what the station was, or what the show was either) where we walk in, immediately get ready to perform ‘Dancing’ and ‘Rebel Yell’ and then sit down… and wait. Waiting is the name of the game in TV – camera blocking, wardrobe and make up, technical issues – they all combine to make it a waiting game. This is fine for me – I check my emails, see what trouble I can get into (none this time, but I’m always on the look out!) and then eventually they shuffle the enthusiastic audience onto the set and it’s time to shoot. Both songs sound great and

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June 26, 2014

TOUR DIARY #4

PLAY ON!

Our first day in Bratislava is a day off. And without meaning to sound chauvinistic… the women. Oh my God, the women! Now let me be clear here – this is not a typical “Dude look at her she’s hot” type guy comment. This is a “what the f*$k is going on here” type comment. It’s actually hysterical because single, married, dating or otherwise, every member of our entourage can be seen at some point during the day just standing still, with a somewhat bemused look on his face, and simply staring out into the square. The place is full of absolutely beautiful females. To the point where it just becomes confusing and irritating. How did they all get here? Where do they go? Have we stumbled upon some kind of Utopian enclave where genetics are farmed and short sundresses are the uniform? I rarely comment like this, but it really has to be seen to be believed. Everyone is intimidated and content to sit at any one of the myriad waterfront coffee bars and watch… slightly open mouthed… as the parade of perfection glides by in heels. Best described as a day spent inside a shampoo commercial (you know the ones where gorgeous models flick their hair about in slow motion, while rays of

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June 20, 2014

TOUR DIARY #3

IN THE GROOVE!

Germany is a huge rock market. And I hate that term…..’market’. But when you’re in the entertainment business, eventually you’ll start talking in terms of markets, and budgets, and units, and… zzzzzzz. I’m sorry, I nodded off there! Lets start again! Germany is a country that has its foundations built on rock music. (Much better!) – they love loud guitars, great singalong choruses…they love a good hook, and a front man that can sing that hook convincingly. In short, they love Billy Idol here. And we love them! And lo, it doth come to pass that we are at the Hassentag Festival, playing right before a certain Mr. Bryan Adams (another purveyor of the big chorus and poptastic riffs) and the evening is primed from the word go. Everyone is in

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June 13, 2014

TOUR DIARY #2

GETTING HOT IN EUROPE!

Copenhagen. Lots of pastries, a shit load of Lego, and cheese for days! We landed at about 7:00am, having travelled for the last 11 hours and changed planes in Frankfurt. So none of us are exactly feeling that ‘fresh as daisies’ type vibe. But the jet lag is a killer if you don’t try and fight it a little. Our math (and trust me, I’m not what you would call a mathematician!) tells us that the only way through is to stay up – all day – and try and make it to 10:00pm or so. Paul and I decide to do a wander through the quaint streets and we leave the hotel feeling pretty good, with the sun shining brightly. Two hours and a couple of hundred bucks later, we’ve had a croissant, a fruit shake and bought some water, watched two drunk guys try and fight each other, and we are standing under a construction site trying to figure out if we will get soaked through in the rain that’s come from nowhere. I’m still trying to work out how I managed to pay $50 for a pastry and a coffee when I stagger back in through the front doors of the hotel, wet, cold, tired…

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June 6, 2014

TOUR DIARY #1

EUROPEAN SUMMER TOUR KICKS OFF!

And so the Billy Idol Summer European Tour 2014 kicks off just like pretty much every other tour in the history of touring. At an airport, at an ungodly hour, with most of us severely under-caffeinated. But that’s nothing that a gallon or two of LAX’s finest roast doesn’t cure and we are soon in the air, and winging our way to the East Coast to play three shows before we head off to Europe. Billy is meeting us out there as he’s been doing some stuff in New York for his forthcoming book, so it’s a slimmer entourage on the plane. Even so, we seem to keep the Flight Attendants busy with witty banter and requests for extra nuts. And who can refuse that request?!?! I choose to watch ‘Pompeii’ and once I managed to shake the weird confused feeling I experienced watching Jack Bauer playing a Roman soldier with an English accent – (Kiefer does a fantastic job actually) – I kinda enjoy the movie. It’s no ‘Gone With The Wind’ but for a movie about a mountain that explodes, it’s pretty good. And just as everyone turns to ash, the tarmac rushes up to meet us and

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May 28, 2014

TOUR REHEARSAL

SUMMER ’14 EURO TOUR REHEARSALS!

Walking in to the Billy Idol rehearsal room feels like we never left. I mean, it’s a serious Déjà vu/Twilight Zone type vibe… my tech Jimbo is running about swearing and cursing at various bits of my gear disassembled on the floor, Billy’s tech Steve is saying nothing but calmly doing what seems to be a complete rebuild of pretty much everything. Steve Steven’s guy Marty is hidden behind racks of flashing lights and amps and pedals and FX, staring at a rig that would confuse the most senior NASA engineers. Our German production manager Karel is smoking one cigarette after the other and working out how to fit a square peg into a round hole. All the other guys (Dorian, Trevor, Lloyd, Joel and Greg) are on the couch with their

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