Ramblings

After the excitement of David Bowie’ emergence as a superstar in 1972, rock music had grown tired and flabby. Although there were bright spots like Dr Feelgood, I was more interested in discovering older rock’n’roll and soul classics than exploring the current scene. But at last, in 1977, something was stirring.

I was late to The Sex Pistols. I heard the media outrage long before I heard the music. My mum asked me what I thought of them – expecting me to say, perhaps out of loyalty to The Beatles, that they were tuneless, hyped rubbish. But I was noncommittal: I said I hadn’t heard them. Not surprising: I mostly listened to (or at least, heard) daytime BBC Radio 1 at the time, who shunned punk for fear of alienating their ageing audience. Radio 1’s idea of rock was The Beatles, Queen, Mud, – ELO, for god’s sake – not recognising that punk was simply a new crop from the same tree which had borne such rich fruit in the 1950s and ‘60s.

I finally heard what they sounded like on a visit to my brother in Edinburgh. Rob played his copy of God Save the Queen. I was more startled than impressed at first, but there was a level of commitment and energy reminiscent of Little Richard. Adding their anger into the mix, this was something new. I heard more of their tracks on Radio 1’s John Peel show – one of their DJs, at least, was willing to champion exciting new music. Eventually they even appeared on Top of the Pops singing Pretty Vacant. With hindsight, considering the political horrors Britain was to undergo in 1979, it seems strange that this all happened on dear old Jim Callaghan’s watch.

I bought Never Mind the Bollocks on the day it came out and played it again and again. Damn, they cut it loud. It spoke to my desires and frustrations, to my energy and my ambition. It was the record I needed in that part of my life. Not that I ever identified or tried to style myself as a punk of course – I was a nice middle-class boy.

I never saw them live. I managed a few punk gigs: The Clash (a mess), The Saints (sharp), Ian Dury and the Blockheads (outstanding), The Stranglers (tight). Surprisingly I enjoyed The Boomtown Rats most, not so much revered now – or perhaps overshadowed by Bob Geldof’s Band Aid and Live Aid achievements – who played a tight, feisty set and had the crowd in a frenzy. I also had tickets in the same week for gigs in Coventry by The Damned and The Jam. It was the first week back at uni in January, and I had three (count ’em!) essays due in by the end of the week, which I hadn’t started during the Christmas break. I ended up selling my tickets, and I never saw those bands. I could weep.

Nor did I manage to see The Sex Pistols on their reunion tours in 1996 or 2007. But at last in 2024 – after a couple of failed attempts to buy tickets for their Bush Hall benefit gigs – I at last got hold of a ticket to see them at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, north London. Seeing the demand for their Bush Hall gigs, they thought they may as well make some money for themselves.

Not the full band, of course, 75% of it, following John Lydon’s well publicised falling out with the other three band members. His place was to be taken by Frank Carter, who made his name with retro punk band The Rattlesnakes.

The evening was doubly nostalgic for me; back in the 1980s I lived on the corner of Bartholomew Road and Patshull Road, ten minutes walk from the O2 Forum – at the time it was called the Town & Country Club. I saw some big names there: the Kinks, Iggy Pop (both very ragged and sloppy – I later saw much better gigs from Ray Davies and Iggy) Carl Perkins (stately) and Etta James (huge and majestic).

(The old name comes from the joke about a man who goes into the Town and Country Club, and is asked “Are you a town member or a country member”. He replies “I’m a country member”. The doorman replies “Ah yes, I remember”)

The weather was miserable and Kentish Town tube station was closed for renovation work, so holidays in the sun were on my mind as I trudged the once familiar route north from Camden Town. I couldn’t resist the temptation to call in at the Bengal Lancer, the Indian restaurant which was such a favourite when Debbie and I started going out. The lamb pasanda was delicious, just as I remember it. But perhaps they could have risked a few more menu changes over the last 35 years.

The restaurant was quiet, and I overheard three well-dressed respectable looking guys, quite old (well no, about my age) enjoying their curry and chatting. The talk turned to music, and they mentioned the Sex Pistols. As they rose to leave, I ventured “So this is what punks look like these days?” They grinned and one replied “We went to school with Cookie and Jonesy.” Not with Matlocky then, I guess. “I hope it’s not too loud” said one of them ruefully as they left. Although it was cold and wet outside they failed to shut the door: whether that was an act of punk rebellion or a senior moment I couldn’t tell.

The O2 Forum was built as a cinema in the art deco style in 1934, but makes an excellent rock venue, with standing downstairs and unreserved seating upstairs. I managed to find a seat on the third row of the balcony. Looking around, some of the audience were young enough or female enough to know better, but most of us were older men, true believers in something or other. The dress code was black, with many new and vintage band tee shirts in evidence, but far fewer of the extreme punk hair and clothing styles I have seen for lesser bands at that punk redoubt The 100 Club in Oxford Street. Meanwhile the speakers, painted in iconic Never Mind the Bollocks yellow and pink, the backdrop with huge speakers labelled Nowhere and Boredom and the drumkit labelled NMTB were already whetting our appetite.

GIRLBAND! (their capitals and exclamation mark) were the support. A three piece all female rock band, they played a lively, enjoyable and well-received set, and had the audience singing along with gusto.

Once it went past nine o’clock, the audience started to get restless, but I was reassured when the guy next to me showed me on his phone that the Sex Pistols were due on stage at 9:10. I reckoned starting on time would be a betrayal of the spirit of punk, but I needn’t have worried: by 9:25 they still hadn’t appeared. My new friend was getting worried: he’d come from Peterborough, and would have to leave at 10:30 to catch his train home. Then came an announcement that the start was delayed for a medical emergency. Not surprising, I guess, in a 2,300 capacity venue packed with excited over-65s. I hope they were ok.

Finally the lights went down and nearly fifty years after The Sex Pistols burst onto the scene to a partially thrilled Britain and a baffled and shocked world, I was finally seeing and hearing them. Or at least, 75% of them, and a very capable stand-in for John Lydon.

As they tore into Holidays in the Sun, the band had the time-honoured welcome of plastic beer glasses flying over and into the audience, some still well supplied with lager. The Sex Pistols stood for rebellion, energy and chaos: the rebellion lost its power without John Lydon, the energy now has to be carefully portioned out, and the chaos is recreated note for note. But the music is better than ever.

Because whatever Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood and Bernard Grundy – or even John Lydon – may have thought, the Sex Pistols were at heart a rock band – albeit one with a crazy level of energy and aggression which could never have been sustained beyond a single album. But what an album! And tonight the whole of it – and other nuggets – were played with fierce precision.

Jones, Matlock and Cook are in their late sixties, but Frank Carter at 40 brings some relatively youthful and sweary aggression to the vocals. Wisely he didn’t try to imitate Johnny Rotten’s mannerisms – this is no tribute band – but focused on getting the sound and energy right. Although I do know the word Lydon would use for his rock-star crowd surfing antics during Satellite.

Steve Jones has passed the skinny-legged phase of his life, but his guitar was brash and incisive. Glen Matlock with his leonine hair, moustache and carefully trimmed beard brings an unexpected gentlemanly gravitas to the band, looking almost as out of place as Charlie Watts did in the Stones. He seems to pop up everywhere these days: last year, without trying, I saw him playing in an Iggy Pop Lust for Life tribute at the 100 Club, as part of Blondie in Crystal Palace Park, and as a special guest with Suzi Quatro at the London Palladium. Cookie, as I like to call him, drove it all along nicely.

Personal highlights were songs that never quite made single release: Bodies and E.M.I.. Naturally God Save the Queen was rendered as God Save the King, Whether or not we believe there is No Future, there’s certainly less of it than there was 47 years ago. As well as every track on NMTB we had Carter’s spirited version of Sid Vicious’s My Way and the post-Rotten treat of Silly Thing. There were plenty of phones out: click on the links above and below to sup from St Cecilia’s fount and enjoy the heavenly music as it was played on this special night. Or you can watch the whole gig from the front row here.

Set list

• Holidays in the Sun
• Seventeen
• New York
• Pretty Vacant
• Bodies
• Silly Thing
• Liar
• God Save the Queen (sung as God Save the King)
• Submission
• Satellite
• No Feelings
• No Fun
• Problems
• E.M.I.
• My Way
• Anarchy in the U.K.

As I left the venue, the thought struck me that two days earlier I had been at the Coliseum watching the dress rehearsal of Puccini’s La bohème. I wondered, how many people had been at both events? More than you’d think, probably. It’s all music, right?