Moments before the Sex Pistols launch into a scathing version of “Problems”, frontman Frank Carter tells the massed punks in the Royal Albert Hall that is the first time Steve Jones has ever visited the venue. That’s something of a surprise given that not only has Jones spent 50 years in the music industry, but before that he was the teenage master of blagging his way into West London venues, usually to liberate some of the gear. But this evening’s show marks his debut – as well as one of the more unlikely shows the hall has seen in its 154-year history.
A few days previously, the band warmed up for this Teenage Cancer Trust charity show with a rambunctious secret gig (under their old SPOTS pseudonym) in the more familiar setting of the 100 Club watched by a crowd that included Paul Weller, Noel Gallagher, Bobby Gillespie and Gary Kemp. Outside the Royal Albert Hall, fans young and old – but mostly old – swap punk rock war stories and compare tattoos. The Pistols aren’t the first punk band to play the venue, but there still seems something very implausible about this appearance, not just in terms of their own history as one-time scourges of the establishment as much as the fact the band have reunited at all.
The three original Pistols – Jones, Glen Matlock and Paul Cook – recruited Frank Carter, previously of Gallows, as their new singer in autumn 2024. It’s worked incredibly well. Carter brings energy and enthusiasm to the role, allowing the three older members to focus on the music. Carter, dressed for the occasion in a Mark Powell suit, tackles Pistols songs without resorting to a Johnny Rotten impression, an accomplishment in itself, and spends most of the gig in the audience. He’s standing on the barricade for “Pretty Vacant” – placed surprisingly early in the set – and then belts out “Bodies” while surfing through the crowd on the heads and shoulders of the fans. For “Silly Thing” he takes his mic stand and plants it like a military standard in the middle of the pit as the crowd surges around him like a human whirlpool. Back on stage, Glen, Paul and Steve shrug and carry on. They’ve seen worse.
John Lydon had always seemed so irreplaceable, that it was unimaginable the Pistols would perform with another singer. But Lydon’s failed attempt to ban the use of Sex Pistols music for Danny Boyle’s Pistol miniseries appears to have broken the last remaining bond between the group. The Pistols felt liberated, finally ready to replace Lydon with somebody a little less awkward and cynical, but with their own charisma and presence.
There must be something very cathartic about this. Back in the day, the Sex Pistols came and went in the blink of an eye – half a blink for Matlock – leaving a totemic legacy that even Lydon has struggled to overcome. The reunions with Lydon felt forced and were nakedly commercial – the band seemed to distance themselves from the shows even as they were playing them, with Lydon lacing everything in mockery and contempt. But now, the Sex Pistols can embrace that history, that music, and claim it for themselves.
Because it bears repeating that the Pistols wrote half-a-dozen of the best pop songs of the decade. They open with “Holidays In The Sun” and then dip into the classics throughout a short, intense set that also includes a fine pair of covers: “No Fun”, which is Frank doing Johnny doing Iggy; and “My Way”, one Frank doing Sid murdering another Frank. But strip away those layers of irony and this is a fantastic, frantic show, with a wild mosh pit, pogoing in the Royal Box and just the right balance between music and mayhem. The band end on “Anarchy In The UK”. With Frank Carter once more lost in the crowd, Matlock and Jones drop out, leaving Cook to maintain the beat while the audience repeat an a cappella refrain of “I wanna be anarchy”. At first it sounds menacing, then it sounds beautiful, then it sounds like “Kumbaya”, so Jones hammers down the riff, Matlock picks up the bass and the Sex Pistols bring the Royal Albert Hall back to the boil.
Holidays In The Sun
Seventeen
New York
Pretty Vacant
Bodies
Silly Thing
Liar
God Save The Queen
No Fun
Satellite
No Feelings
Problems
EMI
My Way
Anarchy In The UK