Being wrong has never been so gratifying.

In every bit of Public Image Limited related media, you’ll have read how PiL is John Lydon’s serious musical love. After the Sex Pistols imploded. PiL seem more relevant today than they did before they split up. Sure, the later PiL years saw a more Americanised, somewhat cheesier sound, but most importantly the lyrics remained razor sharp – a fact often overseen.

What's rarely asked, is that if PiL had have continued in the same musical vein as their first few albums would repetition have lessened Lydon’s musical legacy?

The first PiL concert in seventeen years saw a packed o2 Birmingham Academy lap up a set heavily drawn from the first three PiL albums, the set however did acknowledge, celebrate even, some of the latter material. The line-up featured former PiL members Lu Edmonds and Bruce Smith, along with bass player Scott Firth.

Any fears that this line-up wouldn’t do justice to the early bass heavy sounds from the original line up were soon blown out of the water. Lu Edmonds guitar scratched and contorted alongside the pounding rhythm section seamlessly.

Death Disco was perhaps the most intense moment of the set, and saw Lydon practically breaking down on stage, manifesting the pain of the songs subject matter into a claustrophobic painful and aurally devastating caterwaul. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much passion in one song in twenty years of gig going.

This intensity rarely let up throughout the whole set, save for a folk reworking Sun from Lydon’s solo album Psycho’s Path, which lightened the atmosphere before waving goodbye with the double whammy of Rise and Open Up, both perfect cases of Lydon’s later output still having the ability to remain as important as the earlier works that made PiL such a lauded band.

In a decade that has seen many a reunion, I had assumed PiL 2009 to be a pale imitation, session musician heavy mauling of the bands musical legacy. Tonight I was proven wrong, mightily. Being wrong has never been so gratifying.

Christopher Lloyd.

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