PiL @ UEA
"My clothes were literally being blown by the bass wind"
Norwich is blessed with a brilliant live music scene, punching above our weight is our speciality. That being said though, it is still fairly rare for an actual, genuine, proper FAMOUS person to come and play for us. If we’re talking famous, they don’t really come much bigger, more legendary and more controversial that one Mr. John Lydon, formerly Rotten.This was the first time he has played here since 1983, so clearly the fans would be out in force tonight yeah? Well actually, no. The LCR was busy, but not full. What – there aren’t 1,550 people in the whole of Norfolk who want to take this rare opportunity to see a legend? Frankly Norwich I’m disappointed.
The bonus for me though was I was able to stand very close to the front and immerse myself in the show. New single Double Trouble kicked things off, but it seemed as though no one really knew the song. Are people not aware that there is a new PiL album out? It was an odd start as we all got used to seeing John on stage; he suffers from stage fright and he did seem slightly ill at ease as the band started to find their groove. By the time they hit us with This Is Not A Love Song though, third song in, they were set. This line up of PiL is probably the best that has ever played under the name. Sure, the original band will always be the one that people think back to and they were the ones who created such ground-breaking music all those years ago, but man can these guys play. Lu Edmonds on guitar and his strange Greek Bouzouki was fantastic; the fact that he looked like a cross between Fagin & Jesus and was dressed in his Victorian finery only added to his brilliance.
The more the gig progressed the better it got, the hotter it became and the atmosphere became more intense but still Norwich seemed content to observe, rather than participate. The set continued to build with The Body & Warrior reminding us that PiL released some brilliant music in their often overlooked mid 80’s to early 90’s period before they embarked on a 15 minute rendition of Religion which was quite simply phenomenal. Scott Firth switched to upright stick bass and as John intoned “TURN UP THE BASS” it got louder and louder and louder until my whole body shook with amazing bass; my clothes were literally being blown by the bass wind. Incredible stuff.
They returned for a run through of Public Image which unexpectedly made loads of people suddenly come alive and surge to the front. What the fuck Norwich? Really? You came out just to hear that one song? Yeah it was good, but it was far from the best song of the night, but I suppose at least it did finally inject a proper atmosphere into the evening. Rise was the last song of the night and what a brilliant song it is as we all bellowed “ANGER IS AN ENERGY”. 1hr & 45mins of almost total brilliance was over. I heard someone say after that they expected more. Are you kidding me? From where I was standing (at the FRONT, not at the BACK) John gave everything, absolutely delivering a brilliant vocal performance.
The more you put into a gig, the more you get out, and last night felt a lot like people had come along just to say they’d seen Johnny Rotten, but imagine how much better the evening would have been if more people had actually known the music and, you know, joined in.
@StuPres
