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BILLY IDOL, JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS In Mansfield, MA With Photos! By Jay Roberts, Massachusetts Contributor Wednesday, August 27, 2025 @ 11:14 AM
My fellow KNAC.COM scribe, interviewer and photographer George Dionne and I had been planning on covering the BILLY IDOL/JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS concert since the slate of shows got announced.
Sadly, Live Nation didn't come through with the press passes. Normally that might mean we were not going to the show. But with necessity being the mother of invention, George got creative and we found ourselves headed to the latest stop on Idol's 'It's A Nice Time To...Tour Again!' concert trek.
This turned out to be a good thing because otherwise we would've missed out on a damn good night of rock and roll!
We chatted for a few minutes and then made our way to get ready for JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS to hit the stage.
An extensive video montage got the show underway. This was the start of an interesting part of the night for me. The video screen that served as the backdrop behind the band was utilized exceptionally well throughout the set and I can honestly say there were a few times where I just said, "Wow!" to what was showing up behind Joan and the rest of the band.
Opening up the set with the song "Victim of Circumstance", JOAN JETT and the rest of her band sounded fantastic right from the start.
It's a bit odd to have the guys singing the backing vocals on the "Cherry Bomb" song considering it is such a quintessential female anthem from THE RUNAWAYS, but that didn't make actually getting to see the song performed live for the first time any less cool.
Yes, this show was the first time I'd ever seen JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS in concert. I guess you can chalk that fact up to just simply never having gotten around to seeing her when she was on tour before.
When I was online looking up the set list that might be performed at the show, I was struck by the inclusion of the song "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)". Given that it is a Gary Glitter song, it was a bit of an odd track to play given everything we know about him nowadays. While the actual performance of the song was well done, it was one of the two songs I just didn't find myself enjoying because of its history.
"You Drive Me Wild", the second song from THE RUNAWAYS catalog in the set list was pretty cool. That led into "Change The World" which is a song I wasn't familiar with but I did enjoy it. JOAN JETT did a brief intro to the song that kind of fueled how much I liked it. I'm probably going to have to check out the studio version of the song.
I don't know if it was intentional or just my brain making connections that weren't there but the songs "Fake Friends" and "Lie To Me" seemed thematically connected thanks to their titles. Both songs were pretty decent tracks. By this point, I was noticing that the songs I wasn't overly familiar with seemed to be really hitting home with me, more than I thought they might.
The cover of THE REPLACEMENTS song "Androgynous" seemed kind of fitting and Jett's voice and stage presence during the song gave an extra bit of heft to the performance.
But after that, the set was heading into the home stretch and it was time for the grand slam quartet of songs that JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS are best known for.
"I Love Rock 'n' Roll" was awesome! Again, first time seeing the song performed live and it is an incredible anthem that always gets me pumped up when I hear it on the radio, so you can imagine the energetic rush I got seeing it in concert. You can check out a video of the performance HERE.
While I know that Jett's cover of "Crimson & Clover" was a big hit for her, it is a song that I have just never really cared for. I'm talking about both the original version by TOMMY JAMES & THE SHONDELLS and her version. During the intermission, when I mentioned this to George as we waited in the line for the bathroom, there was a JOAN JETT fan in front of us who got offended by my assertion. Hey, we like what we like, right?
But while I may not have liked that song much, closing out the set with "I Hate Myself For Loving You" and "Bad Reputation" was a closing crescendo that had me on a rock and roll high. They are two great songs and they were performed flawlessly giving the crowd that one last final rush before the set was done.
As I said earlier in this piece, the band sounded fantastic from start to finish. My minor nitpicks about song choice (and the wish that she'd done "Light of Day") didn't affect my overall enjoyment of the show at all. It was the perfect way to kick off the night and this cranky music fan can now say that I got to rock out with JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS. What a way to start a Saturday night!
SET LIST:
I laughed and said, "Really? I steal your videos all the time!" Well, maybe 'steal' is the wrong word but I have linked his videos at times in articles and I do save them on my computer when he has been at the same shows as me. At least I knew I'd be able to see some of the videos from the show for sure.
But then the lights went down and it was time for BILLY IDOL!
Before I left for the show, I realized I'd never actually ordered the new BILLY IDOL album Dream Into It. I'd heard the first song "Still Dancing" from the album but hadn't gotten around to listening to it as a whole. So when I went to order it, I then learned that it is essentially a concept album looking at Idol's life/career from its beginnings to the here and now.
The reason I mention this is because one of the best parts of BILLY IDOL's thunderously fantastic set was that it was designed to be a REAL promo tour for the album. He played four songs from Dream Into It and since I hadn't heard three of them, they turned out to be really exciting to hear in the live setting.
As with JOAN JETT's set, the backdrop behind the band played a huge role in the show. Whomever did the stage design for Idol deserves an award because between the video and the physical aspect of the backdrop, this was both eye-catching and show-enhancing without being overly distracting from the performance BILLY IDOL and his band were putting on.
The crowd was rocking right from the start as Idol hit the stage with the new song "Still Dancing". He may be nearing 70 years old, but man BILLY IDOL was not lacking in vibrancy or going through the motions as he took you through his career in this one song.
I grew up listening to a lot of his music when he was a regular on the charts, so I knew all of those hits and the way he mixed in the new tracks with them made for a constantly thrilling mix of songs. And he was in fine voice, accompanied by the guitar tandem of longtime collaborator STEVE STEVENS and BILLY MORRISON (who played bass touring with THE CULT amongst his list of credits). The inclusion of two backup singers was superb as they enhanced songs like "Flesh For Fantasy" throughout the night and one of the singers, Jessica Childress, helped bring the house down during a cover of THE ROLLING STONES track "Gimme Shelter".
Regarding those new songs in the setlist, the song "77" had me leaning over to George and remarking, "This song is F'N awesome!" And it was, I loved everything about it.
To be honest, loving everything about it is pretty much what I have to say about the whole set. With the exception of the nearly six minute guitar solo from STEVE STEVENS. I know he can play guitar. I mean, he's had a forty-plus year career and he wouldn't have had that if he couldn't play. When you add in the fact that as I get older, I just don't care about concert solos, an extra song would've been way more interesting to me.
But that said, I really don't have anything else remotely negative to say about the show. The other two new songs "Too Much Fun" and "People I Love" were great and hearing them first in a live setting was a great way to introduce the songs for me.
Before launching into "Ready Steady Go", BILLY IDOL and Billy Morrison helped pay tribute to OZZY OSBOURNE which was a nice moment in the show. As it was happening, I thought of Eleanor getting to see that tribute in person given that she's such a huge Ozzy fan.
The main part of the show closed out with a double shot from the Rebel Yell album as the band launched into "Blue Highway". Guitarist STEVE STEVENS got another brief spotlight at the end of the song with a rendition of the theme from the Top Gun movie, for which he won a Grammy Award for back in the day.
Then came the title track and I have to say that I was really looking forward to hearing the "Rebel Yell" song and it didn't disappoint in the least.
The encore featured four songs and the adrenaline rush continued as BILLY IDOL rocked his way through killer renditions of "Dancing With Myself", the aforementioned "People I Love", "Hot In The City" and the closing number "White Wedding" to send the audience out on a high!
SET LIST:
Remaining Tour Dates:
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Before we made our way to the seats, there was a little side trip in the offing. Someone I knew was going to be at the show and I had to say hi. Who was it? Well, it was none other than one of my favorite mystery writers Joanna Schaffhausen! For a book lover like me, even a brief way to combine my love of music and mysteries gives the night an extra bit of fun. I got to introduce George to her as well. She was at the show with her husband Garrett and her daughter Eleanor (who is my "The Best BLACK SABBATH singer was..." arch-nemesis. Not really, it is just a pretend feud we have going on. She actually has shockingly good taste in music).
Speaking of her voice, the cover of "Everyday People" had the opposite effect on me, I didn't think Jett's voice was that great of a match for the song.
INTERMISSION FUN FACT: While waiting for BILLY IDOL to hit the stage, the guy sitting next to me mentioned that he had a YouTube channel and was going to be filming the show. I asked him what the name of his channel was and he said, "Smash Machine!"
Speaking of "Flesh For Fantasy", I have always liked that song. And even though it was a hit for Idol back in the day, I still think it is a rather underappreciated track given all his other hits. But I have to say that I was even more impressed by the way the song was performed this night. It was not just performing a song, it was a well designed work of art in my book. You can check out a video of the song 
I don't know what my expectations were going into the show but they were surpassed on this night because BILLY IDOL kicked the collective asses of 14,000 people on the night with a set that deftly delivered the goods from start to finish. Whether the greatest hits or the superb new material, the crowd got to roar their own rebel yells all night long to a show that was so sublimely satisfying that it won't soon be forgotten.
