Live Review: Billy Idol, Cheap Trick, The Angels, The Choirboys

With blues skies above, it’s the perfect ambience for A Day on the Green, a chance to unfurl a picnic blanket, or one’s inner rock pig, and enjoy classic rock bands do what classic rock bands do best; play the nostalgia card to a crowd who expects just that.

Sydney pub rockers The Choirboys get things moving, kicking memories into gear with cuts from their Big Bad Noise record while Mark Gable and his cohorts bring a winning larrikin charm to the stage.

Next up, the hard-edged crunch of the Brewster brothers’ twin-guitar attack rings out as The Angels do their thing. The band’s sound has held up incredibly well, probably because distortion pedals will hold up over 30-odd years better than vocal cords.

The cult of Chicago’s Cheap Trick has remained alive thanks in part to 10 Things I Hate About You and an infamous Big Black cover, so there’s a swell of excitement in the crowd’s under-30 population when Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen and company take to the stage. Dressed like the jazziest naval captain you’re ever liable to see, Zander is adept at getting the crowd whipped into a frenzy with Baby Loves To Rock and Dream Police among other favourites.

While it seems a bit of an odd choice for Tom Petersson to lead us through a cover of the Velvet Underground’s I’m Waiting For The Man, Rick Nielsen keeps proceedings interesting. Even if the guitarist’s iconic high jumps are now a thing of the past, the one he attempts during I Want You To Want Me seeing him only get inches off the ground, he’s got all the outlandish pointy guitars and his pick-flicking game is still absolutely on point.

Three songs in, Billy Idol breaks the cardinal rule of today’s proceedings; he plays a joint off the new album. It’s met with a strange, nonplussed silence, but at least the original cyberpunk has enough sense to follow it up with Dancing With Myself and everyone is back on side. Even if the bad boy sexypants shtick is a harder sell when you look exactly like Dolph Lundgren, Idol still throws himself into the set. Though his back catalogue sounds very dated, and nobody wants to hear the new stuff, Idol still sells the set on the strength of his hit songs, Rebel Yell and Flesh For Fantasy among them. He’s still singing with the fuck-you sneer and throws more punches than a character in a Rocky movie (Ivan Drago, naturally) and, if nothing else, it’s a lot of fun. After an encore performance of the obligatory White Wedding the crowd packs up their picnic blankets and heads home for Downton Abbey. Quite a nice little Sunday really.