I caught him on the Rebel Yell Tour '83.... at Southern Star Amphitheatre at ASTROWORLD!!!!!!!!!!! I wore that T-shirt every freakin' Friday while a 9th grade freshman in high school.
It wasn't at Southern Star Amphitheatre. That wasn't built yet! It was at a stage right behind Greazed Lightnin'. Memory a little fuzzy?
The fact that the Texas Cyclone didn't have seatbelts until 1977 is freakin' awesome! I still remember being "cool" by unstrapping my seatbelt during that ride.
That is a cool site. I posted in the forums there before. The forums lost all of its posts recently and hard to start from scratch. It used to be better. The Historical Photos are still Great!
I saw three people sitting in fold-up chairs right outside the door at Numbers at 2:00 this afternoon. Guess they're lining up early...
Bit of a funny story about Billy Idol.... The NRL Grand Final in Sydney and a packed stadium is getting ready to see our version of the Superbowl. Anyway the pre match entertainment had Billy Idol in it. So he comes flying into the middle of the stadium in a small haver craft.....yelling stuff to the crowd......he gets up to play his first song and....nothing. He stood there for five minutes while the entertainment managers tryed to sort out a technical problem. See, he was using US equipment.....and we have Australian equipment.....and between them you need an adaptor....and the only adaptor they had failed. So Billy had to walk off......very embarrasing.
Well... Billy's show just finished up a few minutes ago, folks are trailing out of the club... Let me tell you... from what I heard, they were ON! I live very close to Numbers, so I was able to listen to the entire show from my driveway. I sat in the hatchback of my car, with my drink and just listened. Billy threw down with a nice mix of new and old, closing out the show with Hot In The City, Mony Mony and of all things... I heard Van Halen's 'Jump'... someone who went will have to confirm, but from what I heard, they rocked! He played White Wedding, Dancing With Myself, Eyes Without A Face, Rat Race and Scream from the new album plus a lot of other stuff! They started around 9 and finished up around 10:45... a really good sounding show. Also, earlier today when I got home from my run, around 6-ish, Billy was out by the barricades and bus, signing autographs, taking pictures and chattin' it up with the fans that were hanging out. I walked over and was about five feet from Billy. Folks were taking pics, getting stuff autographed, Billy was cordial, joking, laughing, chicks were screaming, he even took a pic with someone showing his tattoo on his arm and being photographed with a guy and his infant son... crazy. I just hung out and watched... I had 'JUST' gotten back from my run.... no camera... yeah, broke my own rule.... even if I had gone to my place, gotten the cam, by the time I got back he would've been done... I hung out and it was about 5-10 minutes of meet and greet. Steve Stevens made a brief appearance, but he didn't sign anything, he had a chick with him, maybe his wife and maybe the female back up voice I heard tonight, maybe she was the keyboard chick from the videos... who knows. Billy Idol rocked Numbers.
I saw that Rico Suave dude there. They were letting people in for free as long as you had a season pass for Astroworld. I still want my money back.
It was a cool time. That plus Rockets made me too busy and tired to do much yesterday. I'll try to write one tonight.
Yeah. It was the last song. He already did an encore and I thought the show was over. He said "We have one more surprise for you" and the lights when out. Then the beginning of Jump started and we both lost it. (One of my good friends I was with is a HUGE VH and David Lee Roth fan), we were dying. It sounded good. Idol also did an old Generation X song (his old band) "Ready, Steady, Go" which was really cool. Steve Stephens had a cast on. So no guitar windmills for "Flesh for Fantasy", but he did some acoustic soloing that was ok considering he had the cast. A few of Idol's new numbers were actually pretty freakin good. I was surprised. It was just fun being in numbers once again and seeing one of my all-time favorite artists in an intimate venue. He just rocks! He really does have a great voice, but that just gets over-shadowed by his antics, etc. Idol is still crazy and funny as ****.
Oh yeah, he is 48, so my wife called some of his jumps "Mattress Mac jumps". You know he has to bend his knees a little extra... But don't get me wrong. He looked to be in great shape, especially for someone who has been doing what he has for the last 25 years.
