The Daily Telegraph - Features
The Pistols are still punk’s biggest shots
Frank Carter and the Sex Pistols
Bush Hall, London W12
★★★★★
The power trio engine of punk’s greatest band, the Sex Pistols, reunited in London for a display of gnarly rock glory. The overcharged, primal blast of drummer Paul Cook (68), guitarist Steve Jones (68) and bassist Glen Matlock (67) sent the Bush Hall into a gleeful frenzy, as the old punks played in a room not much bigger than the clubs where they made their name in the mid-1970s.
Even without talismanic frontman Johnny Rotten, it was something to behold, with third-generation punk artist Frank Carter (of Gallows and the Rattlesnakes) relishing the role of leading his favourite band. “I’m having the time of my life!” he roared with undisguised glee.
Punk is an awkward fit for nostalgia, old men and women reliving the rebellious anger of their youths. “No future! No future!” roared a crowd untouched by the irony of having safely made it to their own futures. This was a charity gig to save this beautiful
Edwardian dance hall from closure, albeit delivered with a wall-shaking intensity that threatened to destroy the venue it was trying to preserve.
It wasn’t all OAPs in the 350-strong audience, with many younger fans delighting in the chance to see a seminal band who broke up before many of them were born. Pop star Yungblud launched a stage invasion from the crowd, grabbing the microphone to yell a couple of lines of Pistols’ anthem God Save the Queen. He looked rabid with excitement as he popped up, laughing with incredulous pleasure.
I have qualms about Sex Pistol reunions because the group meant so much to me when I was a teenager, when they made one perfect album that changed the course of music before disintegrating. Carter is a very different frontman from John Lydon. For all the effectiveness of his aggressive singing style, it leaves you longing for the theatricality of Rotten’s keening melodies and disdainful delivery. Cook, Jones and Matlock were the engine but Rotten was the spark, and, as such, remains irreplaceable, like The Doors without Jim Morrison, or Nirvana without Kurt Cobain.
Of course, Lydon is still very much alive, but no longer on speaking terms with his former bandmates. So this is what we are left with, and we might as well surrender, because in their moment, playing their classic songs, the Sex Pistols are still the greatest punk band of all.
Playing the Bush Hall tonight, and the O2 Forum Kentish Town on Sept 26; livenation.co.uk