Lets not beat around the bush here - the Sex Pistols are legendary. With only one perfectly formed debut album thirty years ago in "Never Mind the bollocks..." - quite possibly the most precise statement of punk or any other genre distilled in 40 minutes of hate, venom, filth and fury - their artistic reputation was secure. Unlike many of their successors, there was no dreadful second album to tarnish the reputation - no interminable drum solos - nothing (except an endless stream). Just a pure, concise, says everything it needs to say like a punch in the mouth and then sods off - debut. Never grow old, never die - just a perfectly formed, indisputable legend. (The W.Axl Rose Experience might have done well to remember that, you know).

Hell, why not just throw all that legend away with a reformation tour or three, shall we? Cash from Chaos and all that. But lets face it, it could have been brilliant - or dreadful - and It wouldn't have mattered either way.... because its the Pistols, no one likes us, and we don't care.

Now, given the earth shattering nature of Never mind the Bollocks and the fact that this band gave as much a kick up the ass to music as Presley did in the fifties - It's all too easy to read far, far too much into the work of the Sex Pistols. It really is. The personal made political made punk rock, now made into nostalgia.It so easily could just be nostalgia, it really could. Thank God its not.

From a stage festooned with the English National Flag (an oddly contradictory act for the worlds biggest professional californian ex-pat guitarist, Steve Jones), the Sex Pistols now seem to embrace the very institutions they once rebelled against; much like previosu reformations, where they played from behind a royal flag. From the opening tape of "They'll always be an England", there's a quaintly patriotic outlook seemingly at odds at everything else the band seems to rebel against. But one thing is easily forgotten; this is our England, they seem to say. It might be deeply flawed, a land of satellite towns and a freeloading royal family, a system in need of as vast a change now as it did then - but its still our home, right or wrong. A search for somewhere to belong, somewhere of our own. Even if it that place to belong is in the front, in the pit, among the sweaty hordes and punk rock cardboard cut outs with identikit mohicans.

Nevermind the analysis, this is the bollocks. The Sex Pistols play a barnstorming, fantastic set that easily wipes the floor of their current competition. By comparison - though maybe this has a lot to do with the utter fanacity of pistols fans - the Cribs is support are nothing more than an squib flattened by poor sound and minimal lights that are roundly ignored by the few fans present, screaming into the void. Which isn't to say that they're rubbish, because they're not - The Cribs are impassioned, loud and vibrant. Its just that everyone's here to see the Pistols and nothing can change that. Goldie plays an abrasive, confrontational set and then, fifteen minutes before the gig begins, the audience are already fighting with the security, soundtracked by the sub bass of an actor of East Enders  on the decks playing interminable dumb n' bass (interspersed with tracks by PiL and the Clash). Six or seven security wade in in flourescent jackets, a sea of middle fingers and boos ensue and violence erupts.Make no mistake - the pit tonight is savage, and riotous. And the public gets what the public wants....

And what they want is the Pistols. They come on, and the place explodes like a riot. For "Pretty Vacant" its like a sea of bodies, a screaming bloody mess.(Little wonder that drummer Paul Cook described it afterwards as 'Dante's Inferno'). "Seventeen" follows, and then its a stream of classics straight up to the finishing line of the you've heard it a billion times cliche of "Anarchy In the UK". The Pistols are tight and confrontational, yet vaudevillian like a seaside punch and judy show, the Pistols deliver one of the best gigs I've ever seen.

Of course, All this - and all the sociological reading into it too - wouldn't matter a damn thing, would all be mere nostalgia - a pale photocopy of a treasured memory - if they were rubbish. Which in 2002 - at the 25th Anniversary of the Jubilee - they were. The Crystal Palace was one of the worst shows I've ever seen any band ever play - sloppy, meandering, and with all the atmosphere of a carpark. Tonight by comparison, the Sex Pistols were a revelation - biting, savage, and as good as any show I've ever seen in a tight, precise, powerful and often incendiary performance thats almost a contender for show of the year. Even though every song played is over 30 years old, the songs are every bit as incisive and biting and sarcastic as ever - and as utterly neccesary.

 Think of it this way ; what will the turf wars of East Coast/West coast rap matter in twenty years time? What will they say to the people of 2027? How will they relate to Tupac and Biggie dissing each other over a thirty year interview in some long folded glossy magazine? or looking at each other cars in envious manners? It won't matter a damn thing. They will date and become irrelevant, and say nothing about my life or anyone elses. They will fade and be forgotten. But classics like "Satellite" and "Pretty Vacant" perfectly encapsulate the frustration, the rage, the inarticularcy and powerless of growing up in Britain. be it in the seventies, the eighties, the nineties or now. Fine tuned, racous, short, sharp, and savage - tonights set is a distillation of teenage rage and inarticularcy played by 50 year olds, who've grown old but lost none of their bite. A band that bowed out, sold out, and still meant everyword they said.

Quite Simply, the Sex Pistols tonight are one of the finest gigs I've ever ever seen, which amazingly gets even more rough come the encore one-two of a spiky, savage "Bodies" and "Anarchy In The UK".

Sadly though, the only sting in the tail was the brevity of the set. Though they only ever did one one album worth of material and a smattering of b-sides, they did us wrong by shockingly managing to leave songs out ("Satellite","I Wanna Be Me", "Belsen Was a Gas") in favour of erm... an early finish. Having paid upwards of £40 just to watch the gig, thats not on - especially given how brief the gigs are. And given the fact that some of us have travelled absurd distances just to watch the gig, (hell, I left the house at 7 that morning to get there, and I don't get back into my bed until the same time the next day), that really is galling.

But hey! its Punk! its Cash from Chaos! Its taking the power back from capitalist malcolm mcLaren and putting it back in the hands of the workers, those who made the music. And at least we'll have the DVD (filmed across four nights in Brixton) shot by Julien Temple to remember the shows by.

Deservedly legends, finetuned fierce and fifty - The Sex Pistols may have no future, but tonight they were everything punk rock should be - fast, furious, savage, spiky and as subtle as a fight in a moshpit. Brilliant and brutal, they were the bollocks.

Setlist:- Pretty Vacant / Seventeen /New York / No Feelings/ Did You No Wrong / Liar / Submission / (I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone / No Fun/ Problems/ Holidays In The Sun/ God Save The Queen/ EMI (Unlimited Edition) / Bodies / Anarchy In The U.K.