Original image by There Stands the Glass.
The most infamous provocateur in rock history remains rotten. John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, spewed spit, projected snot rockets and insulted the near-capacity audience of more than 600 at Wonder Ballroom on Monday, September 14. I relished his relentless barrage of vulgar behavior.
A day-one fan of the Sex Pistols, I’d somehow never managed to be in the same room with Lydon. My $56.25 investment in a general admission ticket for Lydon’s Public Image Ltd. corrected the significant hole in my concert-going career. Even so, I acknowledge that buying the ticket was a dicey proposition.
Mocking the “wheelchair brigade” positioned near the stage, telling fans “my, how you’ve aged!” and screaming “f*** you” at an apparent heckler, Lydon lived up to his loathsome reputation. Less appealing was the use of the treacherous “okay” hand gesture by Lydon and some fans, something I’d hadn’t previously witnessed at a concert.
There was nothing dodgy about Lydon’s voice. At 70, he resembles Winston Churchill with a mohawk, but his singing is remarkably powerful. Public Image Ltd.’s vintage songs were given correspondingly bold makeovers by the storied guitarist Lu Edmonds (The Damned, Mekons, 3 Mustaphas 3), bassist Scott Firth and drummer Mark Roberts.
The approach careened between beery good cheer and dark nihilism. The pervading sound of the ninety-minute outing, consequently, was a violent form of pub rock. That said, I preferred Jah Wobble’s 2024 live rendering of Metal Box’s “Poptones.”
Opening act Plague Vendor was a nice surprise. The electrifying Stooges acolytes- replete with bloodletting and shouts of “gimme danger”- is among the best biker bands I’ve encountered.