Nearly half a century after his experiment in dub and noise started, John Lydon’s Public Image Ltd exists as a testament to acridity, the existentialist-delineated words of personal enmity, horror and sorrow drenched in the sound of fury and sung in a pained, theatrical manner conjuring all that is Edvard Munch’s The Scream. And to that I say, God save the queen.
This packed-tight Union Transfer show seemed short at first (though no shorter than any other on PiL’s This Is Not The Last Tour thus far), 10 songs in less than 90 minutes. But the intensity of Lydon’s caterwauling, his roller coaster of emotions before the churning combine that is Lu Edmonds, Scott Firth and Mark Roberts’ pound and roar (a happily loud and robust one for just three players) made up for the tinier time frame. If you need more apocalyptic black-humored entertainment than PiL’s peril for your night’s out dollar, see Digger first.
With only “Know Now” and the lengthily elastic “Shoom” designed to represent PiL’s output since 2009’s reformation, Lydon and Co. came close to a greatest-hits set, but with surprising radical twists. Opening with the slash, stab and thudding of “Home” and its “better days will never be” messaging, Lydon’s October surprise came first with an equally pounded out, doubly dooming take of his “World Destruction” track as Time Zone (a 1984 collaboration with producer/bassist Bill Laswell and rapper Afrika Bambaataa). To that initial salvo, then the rabid-rocking “This Is Not A Love Song,” Lydon brought his big-boy vocals and most punctuated, pugnacious phrasing.
All of this set a poignantly appointed, densely soundtracked table for the slower, (un)steadier “Poptones” and its menaced, true-tale mediation on alienation. Complete with Lydon at his dramatic, moaning finest, “Poptones” and the careening “Death Disco” that followed were akin to David Cronenberg’s Crash come to life.
While a thundering “Warrior” and the danz-throck “Open Up” (a 1993 alt hit with British electro act Leftfield, the song was another oddball non-PiL moment in tonight’s set) roused the assembly—not enough so that Lydon still didn’t gripe about how lame the Philly audience was in its response—PiL closed with the literal uplift of “Rise” paired elegantly with the lyricist’s take down of the organized church on “Religion.” Throughout the brief, buoyant showcase, Edmonds, in particular, created a circus of inventively spidery, spine-tingling guitars that merely touched on the legacy of the late Keith Levine while never aping him, as bassist Firth and drummer Roberts also managed propellent, full-blooded rhythms packed with surprising nuances and dizzying flourishes. Nice stuff.
Compact but cutting, PiL and Lydon proved they could still bring loud spectacle, sharp humor, scared sad passion and snot (he still loves to one-handedly blow his nose) to the stage. And get everyone home long before midnight.
—A.D. Amorosi; photos by Wes Orshoski (taken four days earlier at Webster Hall in NYC)
