Billy Idol, along with Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, is on tour this summer. As a long-time fan of both, I was happy to take up my daughter’s suggestion that we check out the stop in Columbia, MD which took place on August 22nd. The show was at Merriweather Post Pavilion, which is your typical outdoor “shed” with a lawn outside the pavilion. We opted for a relaxed evening on the lawn, where tickets were just $38, even after the exorbitant Ticketmaster fees. We arrived about 20 minutes before Joan Jett was scheduled to take the stage and still managed to find a great spot near the front of the lawn, where we planted our chairs and settled in. The venue had to have been very nearly sold out. I know for a fact that the seats in the Pavilion were sold out. The venue holds just under 20,000, which leads me to a question I have. How is it that I have seen Billy Idol in a small theater within the last ten years, and same for Joan Jett, but now they are playing such large venues and filling them? Is there a resurgence in nostalgia? Or is it the double bill that makes it more attractive? I’d like to hear some thoughts on this, because that place was packed.
Let’s get to the show. Joan Jett played from 7:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. In that one-hour set, she played an excellent cross-section of her vast catalog. She even managed to get in a Runaways song (two if you count “Cherry Bomb,” which she also did with the Blackhearts). That song was “You Drive Me Wild,” which she said was the first song she ever wrote. There was a great shout out to The Replacements and Paul Westerberg prior to her cover of “Androgynous.” There was a song from her most recent EP, which was great because I love to hear current tunes mixed in with the classics. She blasted out of the gate fast with “Victim of Circumstance,” “Cherry Bomb” and “Do You Wanna Touch Me.” She closed with what the crowd wanted, a four-song flurry of “I Love Rock n Roll,” “Crimson and Clover,” “I Hate Myself for Loving You” and “Bad Reputation.” In between, a highlight for me was “Fake Friends.” She also threw in some deep cuts from some lesser known records. There were no low points. It was straight ahead, bang, bang, bang, no frills rock & roll at its best. Joan Jett is still bringing it.
Billy Idol and long-time guitarist Steve Stevens, along with female back-up singers and the rest of the band, hit the stage at 9:00 p.m. Their set lasted until about 10:30 p.m. I’ll just blurt it out right now, Billy and company were not up to the task of headlining after Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. At least not for me. The set opener was a new tune called “Still Dancing.” I interpret the song to be a reference to “Dancing with Myself.” Anyway, it’s a good song, and it was a good start, but Billy looked a little listless to us. Next up was “Cradle of Love” from the only Billy Idol record that I hate, Charmed Life. That record was a low point in his career for sure. And while I’m on that, he has made so much excellent music in the past 20 years, starting with Devil’s Playground in 2005. Kings and Queens of the Underground from 2014 was amazing. He played exactly zero songs newer than 1990 with the exception of the aforementioned “Still Dancing” and “77,” both from his brand new 2025 record Dream Into It. If you liked Billy’s output from 2005 to 2024, you were out of luck. And for me, his best records are all from that time period.
The set included “Flesh for Fantasy” and “Eyes Without a Face,” which I realize are both popular, but they’re both slow, too. And it doesn’t help when guitar solos drag them out to eight or nine minutes or possibly more. They covered “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore,” which did nothing for me, but the back -up female singer featured prominently on that one and was clearly a talented vocalist. Now is a good time for me to talk about Steve Stevens. He is on my Mount Rushmore of guitarists. But Good Lord, we joked after the show that we had just seen Joan Jett open for Steve Stevens. There was so much guitar noodling throughout the show that at times I wondered if Billy had gone out for a quick dinner, or backstage for a blood transfusion. He needed something to raise the energy level.
Joking aside, Billy did disappear from the stage for lengthy periods of time on multiple occasions while Stevens soloed endlessly. Some of that guitar noodling was spectacular, it really was, but I prefer three-minute blasts of guitar and drums, rapid fire, one song after another. There was a brief spoken tribute to Ozzy Osbourne by a guitar player named Billy Morrison, after which Billy Idol said that he thought Ozzy would appreciate a good dose of punk-rock. They played “Ready Steady Go” by Generation X, Billy’s first band. It was the best song they played all night. The encore kicked off with “Dancing with Myself,” and as much as I love that song, it lacked energy. “Hot in the City” and “White Wedding” were also encore songs, and as far as I could tell, the crowd was thrilled with the whole thing. I was a little disappointed, but nevertheless, I was very happy to have gone. Joan Jett was great, Steve Stevens was amazing - even if a way too lengthy - and Billy was fun, but he’s lost a step or two.
JCE, or John to his friends, was born in the Nation’s Capital. He grew up in the VA suburbs of D.C. His earliest musical memories are tied to a transistor radio with a single earphone that he carried everywhere listening to AM radio. He is now retired which gives he and his wife of 34 years even more opportunities to travel far and wide to see good live rock n roll.