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SEX PISTOLS - 1996 Tour : Box Set
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Written by Mark Reed
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Friday, 25 June 2010
This compilation box set is a collection of 10 shows from the bands 1996 shows in vinyl replica style sleeves. The performances are fine, strong, and far better than the ramshackle mess that the 1977-78 shows were. The packaging is relatively spartan ; a booklet and 10 identical card sleeves that differ only with the tracklisting and the name of the city on the rear. But, if live Sex Pistols is your thing - this is a worthy addition to the selection that covers several notable shows on the sometimes overlooked reunion tour.
The Sex Pistols were one of the first acts to ever do the reformation trail : thankfully, they were both honest about it - the live album was called "Filthy Lucre", after all - and they managed not to turn the band into a bloated tribute act of paid sessioners with the original singer.
Then again, in one short album and a handful of b-sides (in total, the entire official Sex Pistols canon is around 21 songs - 17 of which appear on this box set in multiple variations), the Sex Pistols napalmed popular culture, said all they had or needed to say and then, like Kayser Soze, they were gone forever, leaving nothing but a memory. Almost.
The overall quality of the recordings - not the performances - are remastered audience tapes : To those ears that grew up listening to muddy sounding bootleg vinyl and cassettes bought from car boot fairs - it's all reasonable, and listenable. But in no way equal to the quality of "Filthy Lucre" or "There'll Always Be An England".
There are ten shows in this set are :
Paris Zenith 4 July 96
Rome Curvba Stadio Rome 10 July 96
Sweden Stockholm 26 June 96
Japan Date Unknown
Sydney Selina's 12 Oct 96
Chile Santiago 07 Dec 96
Chicago Aragon 17 August 96
Hollywood Palladium 23 or 25 August 96
New York 8 or 9 August 96
London Roseland Shepards Bush 17 July 96
Each of the performances is enjoyable and listenable, albeit not always immaculately recorded. Hollywood sounds as if it could be sourced from a webcast ; the Japanese show is not the same audio as the officially released VHS tape from the Budokan but an audience recording. Santiago is a remastered and cleaned up version of the radio broadcast from the final night of the tour with Rotten's rants largely completely excised. "Submission" is on here twice - one fades after 1m 30s and then repeated in full on the next track. One of the other shows, I forget which now, sounds as if it could be taken from a radio broadcast as well. The other seven shows are spruced up audience tapes. The setlists are largely identical - with 14 of the same songs at every show, and in almost always the same order : only occasionally do covers get rotated around.
The Sex Pistols have always been sentimental. Always been fiercely moral. Rising from the despondent quagmire of the last days of Unionised Britain, a hopeless state, the Pistols always always harked back to a nostalgia for an age that never existed : a place where the world was just and fair, where equality was actual, where home was not merely a house.
This is the generation that swore they'd always be different, that they won't get fooled again, and yes, we turned into our parents. But better. It's better to have failed to realise your ideals, than to have been morally bankrupt to these eyes anyway.
As a result, the Sex Pistols are and always will be, one of the few things Britain has to be proud of. If everyone else had as much integrity and honesty as them, the world would be a better place. This box set is not the place to start your Sex Pistols journey - but a fine appendix.
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