Gig review: Public Image LTD, Glasgow
ART and commerce briefly became comfortable bedfellows when John Lydon ploughed the proceeds from his infamous Country Life butter ads into reforming his beloved Public Image Ltd and recording a new album.
ABC
****
This Is PiL picks up where he left off 20 years ago – that is, on the fascinating fringes where punk, dub and funk meet, a place few occupy with such elan as PiL.
New bassist Scott Firth took a prominent role in the mix, providing a hefty foundation over which guitarist Lu Edmonds unleashed controlled chaos. Lydon, meanwhile, was committed, immersed and menacing as so few frontmen are, delivering an almost operatic, possessed performance.
Over a persistently thrilling two-hour set, the band cherrypicked all manner of wonderment from their catalogue. New tracks such as set-opener Deeper Water rumbled forth with the same inexorability as old favourites such as Albatross, while they kept the off-kilter party rolling with the flinty 80s funk of The Body, the quirkily catchy Reggie Song, the springy positivity of One Drop, eminently danceable Warrior and the remarkable proto-house danse macabre of Death Disco, with Edmonds picking out the melody of Swan Lake over and over again.
Even so, there was fuel left in the tank for a storming encore, kicking off with the great cathartic celebration of Public Image. The crowd took up the chant “anger is an energy” on the anthemic Rise, before the band co-opted Leftfield’s electro behemoth Open Up for the pumping finale.