Frank Carter and Sex Pistols: A Night of Grubby Punk To Treasure
Tuesday, 01 October 2024
Written by Matt Mills
Photos: Jason Miller
Why can’t bands ever call it a day and keep it that way? It’s a question that’s been asked regularly of late, not least because of Oasis and Linkin Park reuniting almost simultaneously, stealing headlines and selling a bazillion tickets in the process. More quietly, too, there was the small matter of perhaps the most pioneering and mythologised punk band ever regrouping after 15 years away back in the summer.
To be fair, though, this Sex Pistols comeback has been pretty distinct from the other nostalgic institution restitutions. The iconoclastic idols’ return came with a purpose more significant than “securing a pension” when they announced it back in June. It was initially going to be limited to a handful of shows at the minuscule west London venue Bush Hall — a spot near and dear to Pistols drummer and Shepherd’s Bush lifer Paul Cook, as well as countless other nearby music fiends, that was being threatened with closure.
There’s also the fact that Sex Pistols’ 2024 edition comes with an injection of new blood. The legends’ original agitator-in-chief, vocalist Johnny Rotten, isn’t participating, presumably due to his already-crammed schedule of being a Brexiteer, actually liking the royals now, and other punk [citation needed] things. Snarling behind the mic in his place is Frank Carter, whose own rep is burnished these days by almost two decades in the game with both Gallows and The Rattlesnakes.
Such a change is usually met with strong amounts of scepticism, especially when it’s a band like this. Their sole album, ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’, has spent the last 47 years festering in the hearts of punks young and old, many of whom never got the chance to see the Pistols in their original form before their implosion in ’78. Those songs without that voice? Unthinkable! Right?
But, the band’s Bush Hall shows sold out in a femtosecond. Then they received rave responses from those lucky enough to attend the 400-person gatherings. The demand led to a broader UK tour, which crescendos tonight back in the capital city where it (it being both this reactivation and the Pistols in general) all began.
The four-piece – Carter, Cook, guitarist Steve Jones and bassist Glen Matlock – arrive to unsurprising adulation from a heaving O2 Forum Kentish Town, the show having been postponed for 30 minutes due to an unexplained medical incident front-of-house. “We came here to kill it, but not like that!” Carter growls as a dry-humoured way of wishing their ill crew member well.
He then proceeds to (literally) run circles around his elders as the band burst into Holiday In The Sun and his energy refuses to peter out during the next 75 minutes. He leaps down to the barrier more than a kid who’s just seen their favourite animal at the zoo, and proves all too eager to enter the moshing melee before him. In fact, even in an auditorium where every word is enthusiastically sung back at the band, it may be fair to say that Carter is the most passionate person here. After all, nobody else leaps up a staircase at the side of the stage and jumps off of it to crowdsurf, do they?
The rest of the band are essentially static, because they’re all approaching 70. Cut them some slack. Though Cook still pounds his kit like an athlete, the most flamboyant thing to come from them is a Jones guitar solo during the Stooges cover No Fun, accompanied by a cute little jig between him and Matlock.
But then, of course, ‘flamboyance’ has never been the Pistols’ thing. They’re a grubby punk band and, as far as the stage show goes, they get a grubby punk backdrop. It’s painted in some striking yellow and pink to honour the colour scheme of their one album (which naturally gets played in full tonight), but it’s still barebones posters and amps all round. And nothing else is needed. This crowd and the younger man leading the band’s charge are both so pumped up that all bells and whistles can stay in the attic.
Ultimately, nothing about tonight is surprising. All the expected hits are presented without any pretence or nonsense. But that’s fine. Sex Pistols are so rare and legendary that just being in the room as Cook, Matlock and Jones jam their back catalogue is spectacle enough. No one here knows when, or if, this’ll happen again (probably not even the geezers onstage) so every second is treasured by every person in the building. Almost half a century on, it’s still a case of never mind the bollocks, here’s the Sex Pistols.
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