Three days before tonight’s Sex Pistols performance at the Royal Albert Hall in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust, the band had played a “surprise” gig at the 100 Club, one of the infamous punk venues of 1976 and 1977.
They were billed on Friday as the Spots, which stands for ‘Sex Pistols On Tour Secretly’, the name used by the original band to book gigs in 1977 when it was likely that they would have been shut down by police. On Friday they played a barnstorming set in front of fans and stars alike, including Paul Weller, Noel Gallagher, Gary Kemp and Bobby Gillespie.
Fronted again by the former Gallows and Rattlesnakes singer Frank Carter, guitarist Steve Jones, bass player Glen Matlock and drummer Paul Cook careered through Pretty Vacant, God Save the Queen, Holidays in the Sun and Anarchy in the UK with the youthful energy they first applied when they formed almost 50 years ago. Jones, Cook and Matlock reunited last year for a series of shows at Bush Hall.
John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, was missing from the line-up – he is still smarting from the fact he unsuccessfully tried to block the band using songs in a Disney+ series about their story, Pistol, based on Steve Jones’ autobiography – and so Carter stepped in. The gigs were so successful, and the critical response to positive that they’re now embarking on a world tour, kick-started by these two concerts in London.
Friday’s gig was something of a nostalgia-fest, although their appearance at the Albert Hall was a genuinely novel experience, and one that felt genuinely transgressive. Here were the architects of British punk rock playing at a 150-year-old concert venue in Kensington which was originally opened by Queen Victoria to honour her recently deceased husband (it was originally going to be called the Central Hall of Arts and Sciences).
The original punk rockers performing almost by royal decree, in aid of a kiddies’ charity, to boot! And they did it in front of the Clash’s Paul Simonon, the evergreen Chrissie Hynde, and new boy Yungblud,
But why not and what the hell? As the eighty-year narrative of post-war pop culture slowly comes to an end, its major proponents remain in a cycle of continual movement. Which has meant that eventually, every group who was famous at some point in the last fifty or sixty years find a way to reunite. It’s happened to Led Zeppelin (at the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert at the O2 in 2007), Pink Floyd (Live 8, 2005), Cream (Albert Hall, 2005); it even happened to ABBA (in virtual form) and The Beatles (and two of them are obviously no longer with us).
Jeez, it’s even happening with great fanfare with Oasis (although Noel Gallagher has been rumoured to be telling his friends to come to the early reunion concerts, while Liam still has his voice). So why on earth shouldn’t it happen with the Sex Pistols? This isn’t Queen with Adam Lambert, the Doors with Ian Astbury or the Stranglers without Hugh Cornwell, and while the addition of Carter was surprising, it’s been comprehensively successful. The Pistols had already done it with John Lydon twice, once in 1996 and once ten years later, although the enmity between the original members (or rather between Lydon and the rest of them) has necessitated this sticking plaster band.
But what a band. Lydon has ungraciously and predictably called this latest incarnation the “karaoke Sex Pistols”, but this hasn’t deterred the fans from coming, or the critics from applauding. For Jones, Cook and Matlock, one of the pivotal reasons for reforming is to show the world that as well as being the catalysts for a movement, they were actually a really good live band. The Sex Pistols’ legacy has been debased so much that they are often seen as a cartoon manifestation of their ex-manager Malcolm McLaren’s imagination. Their current incarnation proves they were anything but.
From the opening bars of Holidays in the Sun (which still sounds like a glacial version of the Jam’s In the City), to the closing chords of Anarchy in the UK, they sounded like the slickest garage band you’ve ever heard, with Paul Cook as the redoubtable heartbeat, Glen Matlock the maverick cowboy, and Steve Jones the stoic Neil Young of punk, making a solitary, monstrous noise that has already probably started to divest the Albert Hall of its ornamental terracotta.
And Frank Carter? Well, while he looks like Taron Egerton, making you wonder why a young Elton John is suddenly fronting Britain’s most infamous punk band, he has the joyous energy of the recently paroled.
Even though the excitement in the room was contagious, and at times felt like it could explode, the general feeling was one of benevolence (helped no doubt by the fact this was the opening gig of this year’s Teenage Cancer Trust residency); when Carter told the audience that this was the first time Steve Jones had ever been to the venue (either as an audience member or a performer), the laughter rang round the room.
They played most of their classic repertoire - Seventeen, Pretty Vacant, Liar, God Save the Queen etc - although one of the most poignant moments of the evening was their rendition of Silly Thing, which I think surprised us all (honestly, is this really anyone’s favourite Pistols song?); the reason was no doubt the accompanying Circle Pit, which Carter initiated masterfully, and which is almost certainly not the kind of thing you usually see at the Albert Hall, and which created its own, completely mental, TikTok meme.
Today they fly to Tokyo for the start of their world tour proper. Having seen them play tonight I kind of want to go with them. Not being a fan of reunions, I didn’t go to the previous two tours, but there is something about this new iteration that has captured people’s imagination. Even before they’d played a note, the expectations were huge. And they’ve been met.
We live in a world where the recent past has become even more of a commodity than it was when it actually happened. Thirty years ago, there was a vogue for jukebox musicals, and when Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys franchises started to pop up in every city from Adelaide to Dallas suddenly everyone wanted one.
Then it was the turn of the biopic. Since the release of Bohemian Rhapsody, Back to Black, One Love, Elvis, Rocket Man, and Steve Jones’ own Pistol, every self-respecting band (or ex-manager, publisher or copyright holder) has wanted one of those too. In fact, Bohemian Rhapsody made so much money there was even talk of a sequel; how they intended to do this without Freddie Mercury was anyone’s guess, although Rolling Stone at the time made a fair fist of it by suggesting five possible scenarios.
So not only have we not seen the last of the Sex Pistols, but judging by their recent performances, nor should we want to. As the Japanese say, Igirisu no museifujōtai! (Anarchy in the UK!).
