★★★☆☆
“All Marx and Lenin again!”, Lydon spits on ‘Being Stupid Again’: a smarmy, gloom-groove highlight from End of World, PiL’s excellent new album. “Men into women, and back into men… all maths is racist!”
Denouncing screamy student activists as “minges”, as he does on this song, is arguably more socially subversive in 2023 than having a pop at the royals. But as you peruse the audience at tonight’s show at Margate’s Dreamland theme park hall, noting that most of the crowd is of Wetherspoons solo day drinking age, you can’t help but think it’s a shame if Lydon’s anti-woke rants are putting off younger potential new fans from delving into the history of the band Lydon started in 1978; that he’s spurning an opportunity to prove there’s more to his musicality than antagonistic punk rock.
Still, tonight any audience apprehension about ‘Being Stupid Again’s’ lyrical inspiration deriving from Piers Morgan’s news docket is scythed down by a jagged riff from fuzz-beard guitarist Lu Edmonds, that sounds like an aeroplane wing wobbling at high speed. It’s one of the more melodic moments of a show visiting both the poppy and dark corners of PiL. Like the band’s mouthpiece, clad in an oversized white waistcoat, red trousers and tartan tie, it’s equal parts meandering loudness and pure entertainment.
Photo: Ian Gavan
‘Death Disco’ is both a gig highlight and the perfect description of PiL’s classic sound: a creeping, punk-funk clatter, helmed tonight by bassist Scott Firth locking into the kind of propulsive groove first forged by the band on their 1979 album Metal Box.
On ‘Albatross’, also from that album, Edmonds’ dark waterfall hair brushes his guitar as he picks out riffs as wiry as his stick insect legs. The song sounds tighter, meaner and leaner than its studio version, Lydon’s neck bulging as he warbles, eyes screwed shut.
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Unlike these subtly sinister, groove-led ancestors, many of PiL’s new songs are lapel-grabbingly fast and blustery, completely deserving of full-throttle live renditions. It’s a shame, then, that Lydon remains rooted behind his lyric book stand for ‘Penge’, which on record sounds like a Bromley-based war march but tonight is more of a brisk stroll.
‘Car Chase’, too, feels like it needs more of the manic energy of its lyrical protagonist: a patient on the run after escaping a mental asylum. 67 year-old Lydon can be forgiven for not cartwheeling across the stage on a rainy Tuesday night in Margate, but these songs should detonate rather than simmer.
Photo: Ian Gavan
Lydon’s response to such quibbles would likely be derived from the call- and- response chant he leads the crowd through during ‘Shoom’, after he loudly complains to venue staff about an air conditioner bothering him. As the audience echoes the straightforward lyrics – “Fuck off!” – a look of deep contentedness forms on the singer’s face. “It’s been a difficult few years, but fuck all that – we’re alive,” Lydon says, before putting a finger to his nose and firing a harpoon of snot across the stage with impressive velocity.
This wasn’t a classic show, but was a stirring reminder that the fact that PiL are very much alive, releasing some of the best songs of their career, and seemingly in rude health – nostril congestion notwithstanding – should still be celebrated.
