Pull those ripped tartan trews on lads, the Sex Pistols are back! Well, kind of. Lead singer John Joseph Lydon, aka ‘Rotten’, is livid that the other three surviving members have decided to perform a couple of charity gigs without his consent. Really? Punks doing charity gigs? Sid Vicious must be turning in his Pennsylvanian grave.
A throng of balding 67-year-olds were pogoing to ‘God Save the King’ while hurling £8 pints of lager at each other
The feud goes back to the mid-1970s when Lydon, in typical muso style, vowed to stay true to the music while the other layabouts were more inclined to milk the legacy for all it was worth. More recently, he tried to prevent the band’s music from being used in a TV series directed by Danny Boyle. According to one source: ‘Rotten thinks he IS the Pistols and has the rights to all their music, but these gigs will show they don’t need him any more.’
Before one charity gig at the Forum last week, news reached the packed auditorium that a medical emergency backstage meant the show might have to be cancelled. Had Rotten finally taken revenge on the lousy sell-outs? You could feel the tension as speculation grew. Might anarchy finally be for the UK? Or a gloomy NW5 at least.
When bassist Glen Matlock, drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones eventually lumbered on to a poorly lit stage, all hell broke loose. I had chosen to be upstairs in the more sedate seated area, but down in the mosh pit a tightly packed throng of balding 67-year-olds were pogoing to ‘God Save the King’ while hurling £8 pints of lager at each other. It must have given younger members of the audience an inkling of what it was like when the Pistols first barged on to the scene.
With spiky hair, even spikier guitar riffs and a pleasingly snotty attitude to authority, the Pistols managed to transform the music industry… for about 20 minutes. After a chaotic year in the spotlight, punk’s cobbled-together charm had already become the subject of mockery. In 1977, light entertainer Derek Nimmo, dressed in a pair of ill-fitting bondage trousers, was filmed approaching random shoppers on the King’s Road. When asked whether she would buy punk style bondage gear for her husband, one impeccably posh Chelsea lady replied: ‘I don’t think his constituents would like it terribly, you see he’s a member of parliament.’
If punk couldn’t make it to the 1980s, I doubted that even the most charitable intentions could revive it after nearly five decades. But at the Forum, my cynicism turned to euphoria. After sitting stiffly through the first couple of numbers from their seminal Never Mind the Bollocks, I found myself bellowing along to classics such as ‘Silly Thing’ and the band’s snarling rendition of Sinatra’s ‘My Way’. During a rapturous encore of ‘Anarchy in the UK’, the hairs on the back of my neck were fizzing with delight. Such raw energy.
Paul Cook, who still resembles a Dickensian street urchin, albeit one that’s been left out in the sun too long, hammered through the set with barely a pause for breath. Not bad for a man approaching 70. Mild-mannered Glen Matlock’s effortlessly ferocious bass lines shook the Forum’s art deco walls to their core. Matlock is a neighbour of mine in west London and I often see him padding the streets, most recently armed with a smart new mop. I guess even ex-punks have to clean the kitchen floor.
While Cookie and Matlock appear dignified in their dotage, axeman ‘Jonesy’ is barely recognisable as the once lean, hanky-on-head-wearing firebrand. With his overflowing midriff and bull-neck he’s obviously been enjoying life in his adopted LA. I liked that his XXL Union Jack t-shirt was given its own round of applause and am pleased to report that those classic riffs were as crunchy as you remember.
But what of the missing frontman, still presumably fuming back at his Malibu ranch? Rotten was certainly missed by the hardcore fans I spoke to, but his pantomime villain persona, a cross between Albert Steptoe and a heterosexual Kenneth Williams, is easy enough to parody. The current incumbent, a heavily tattooed Frank Carter, took on Rotten’s sneering mantle and ran with it, quite literally sprinting back and forth across the stage, dive bombing the audience at any opportunity, much to the distress of the health and safety personnel parading the auditorium. I wonder what ‘elf and safety’ was like back at the Pistols’ first gig in the Common Room of St Martin’s School of Art.
Carter certainly has an impressive vocal range and showed plenty of sweary attitude, but as the band finished their set I was reminded of Lydon’s parting shot to the audience at their last ever gig at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, when he asked forlornly: ‘Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?’
It’s almost half a century since the Pistols caused a national outcry by sticking two fingers up to the establishment. What a shame today’s youth aren’t as fired up about our own festering elite. Depressingly, most appear to be either in lockstep with the lunatics in charge or detached from politics altogether. Someone should remind them that their ‘future dream’ ought to be more than just a ‘shopping scheme’.
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