Public Image Limited - o2 Academy, Bristol - 28th September

It’s not revelatory to say that John Lydon is a complicated fellow. His long and storied history notwithstanding, in the last decade he has declared support for both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, and advocated for both Leave and Remain in the ‘Brexit Years’. For most, if not all, those opinions are at odds, but Lydon is able to wholly justify them to himself, if not to anyone else.

So it goes: midway through tonight’s show Lydon is barracked by an audience member which clearly infuriates him, roaring back in response: ‘Rundown lavatory of a country and you dare challenge me. You’re the cunts that ruined Britain…but I like you.’ He may be contradictory, but he is at least true to himself. His schtick is no act.

If it is, it must be exhausting. As he and the rest of Public Image Ltd, the original post-punks, walk (or, in Lydon’s case, lurch) on to the stage, clad in an oversized pinstripe jacket and tie, he takes to the mic: ‘I have one request for you this evening. Put your cell phone up your arsehole. When that light gets in my eyes, that’s when the music stops.’ Impressively, the crowd (mainly made up of greying/balding heads, barring some smatterings of youth) generally acquiesce to his demand.

https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2023/10/public-image-ltd-live-o2-bristol/