The Public Image Belongs To Me.......
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words and photos copyright Joe Donnelly 2011
Pre gig
Thanks to $$ we got lost on the way to the gig and had to get 4 sets of instructions and a drenching in a torrential downpour before we actually found the venue . We had no choice but to spend the rest of the evening standing about soaked creating puddles .
Friday nights 'PIL' gig was their Irish debut which has only taken 33 years to come around, it proved to be a night of extremes to say the very least. We met up with some other ex 'Belfast' punks (& a rockabilly) who'd also made the 112 mile journey down for this supposedly special ocassion . The Magill bros 'Paul & Tony' who are both really good guys were there along with their mate 'Larry', they were good craic later during the lost journey to find 'Dublin' city centre .'Stevie Hardigan' who I hadn't seen in quite a while was also there and those 'Stop Stop Start Again' boys were doing some serious drinking ahead of their own celebrations at the 'Black Box' next night.
For whatever reason I had never seen 'John' live in the flesh so to speak before tonight, either as a 'Pistol' or a 'PIL' and now 21.00 pm on 10.6.11 there he was standing right in front of me and looking pleased to be here at last. The 'Tripod' was now packed , a muddy bass mix start ruined the opening tune 'Public Image' for me ,but the sound was soon in sync and had improved dramaticly while the band quickly got into their groove . 'John' was in good form ,bantering the crowd while spitting and blowing his nose onto the stage in equal measures. A baldies mosh pit developed and lasted about three songs before fading out due to over optimistic oap burnout, lol.
As the set progressed some songs (especially 'Albatross') were dragging on & on & on & on ,being stretched out well beyond the pale. It became an endurance test (a tactic that was repeated to zero effect a few times during this evening) and I wanted to kill that f****** bird (metaphorically speaking) by the tortures sorry! songs overdue end, the extended monotonous drone was boring the balls off me. Stage right 'Lu Edmonds' looked like a cross between Catweazle and Fagin while strangling some weird and sometimes wonderful sounds (sometimes using a violin bow) from what looked like a cross between a big mandolin and a banjo!!. 'Bruce Smith' and 'Scott Firth' are a rock solid rhythm section and were leading the live 'PIL' charge in its many diverse directions .
Let's be honest here 'Mr Lydon' maybe one of the most iconic frontmen of all time but he is not a conventional singer if you catch my drift and at times his caterwauling was ear splittingly painful. He also took great delight in venting his spleen with a venomous rant against the catholic church and a humorous dig at the Irish anti smoking laws, he loves his ciggies. Death Disco , Disappointed ( a very angry thunderous bass driven and scathing ) Religon' & the encore 'Open up' were the highlights of a challenging night for me , there was no 'Annalisa' or 'Careering' though which was disappointing.
Post Gig
We met 'Paul Magill' again as we were leaving and he said it was the worst gig he'd ever been to , while I don't think it was as bad as that I do agree with him that it was sometimes very hard on the ears , but there was enough decent tunes performed to keep me reasonably happy but I certainly wouldn't pay 44.50 euro a skull to see 'PIL' live again thats for sure. Hopefully 'Johnny Rotten' will be resurrected and the 'Sex Pistols' will reform again soon . It must be time to top up the pension plan with some of that filthy lucre again .
The adventure continued when we tried a different route back to 'busaras' and we got lost again , but we were having a laugh with the 'Magills' and 'Larry' so it wasn't so bad plus it only took 2 sets of intructions to put us on the correct path this time . We got got to the station with a couple of minutes to midnight to spare and the coach home didn't turn up and we had to hang around until 01.00am waiting on the next bus home . An out of it hooded chav druggie approached me and slurred a request for me to help him roll a spliff and I told him to "f*** off" away with his drugs from $$ and me . I thought we were going to get into a punch up when he hooked up with a six of his pals outside a bar across the street , but in the end thankfully nothing happened .
We finally got home at 04.30 am and on reflection along with the benefit of hindsight I asked myself did I think it was worth all the effort and hassle ?, no it was not! But '$pikey $teve' thought 'PIL' were great and was well impressed. Am I getting too old for this lark?, noway and another gig awaits tonight. I can't help it if I like my r'n'r in short sharp blasts & not arty wank workouts.
"Good bye bye bye" more photos here
Joe Donnelly . Belfast 11.6.11.
Pre gig
Thanks to $$ we got lost on the way to the gig and had to get 4 sets of instructions and a drenching in a torrential downpour before we actually found the venue . We had no choice but to spend the rest of the evening standing about soaked creating puddles .
Friday nights 'PIL' gig was their Irish debut which has only taken 33 years to come around, it proved to be a night of extremes to say the very least. We met up with some other ex 'Belfast' punks (& a rockabilly) who'd also made the 112 mile journey down for this supposedly special ocassion . The Magill bros 'Paul & Tony' who are both really good guys were there along with their mate 'Larry', they were good craic later during the lost journey to find 'Dublin' city centre .'Stevie Hardigan' who I hadn't seen in quite a while was also there and those 'Stop Stop Start Again' boys were doing some serious drinking ahead of their own celebrations at the 'Black Box' next night.
For whatever reason I had never seen 'John' live in the flesh so to speak before tonight, either as a 'Pistol' or a 'PIL' and now 21.00 pm on 10.6.11 there he was standing right in front of me and looking pleased to be here at last. The 'Tripod' was now packed , a muddy bass mix start ruined the opening tune 'Public Image' for me ,but the sound was soon in sync and had improved dramaticly while the band quickly got into their groove . 'John' was in good form ,bantering the crowd while spitting and blowing his nose onto the stage in equal measures. A baldies mosh pit developed and lasted about three songs before fading out due to over optimistic oap burnout, lol.
As the set progressed some songs (especially 'Albatross') were dragging on & on & on & on ,being stretched out well beyond the pale. It became an endurance test (a tactic that was repeated to zero effect a few times during this evening) and I wanted to kill that f****** bird (metaphorically speaking) by the tortures sorry! songs overdue end, the extended monotonous drone was boring the balls off me. Stage right 'Lu Edmonds' looked like a cross between Catweazle and Fagin while strangling some weird and sometimes wonderful sounds (sometimes using a violin bow) from what looked like a cross between a big mandolin and a banjo!!. 'Bruce Smith' and 'Scott Firth' are a rock solid rhythm section and were leading the live 'PIL' charge in its many diverse directions .
Let's be honest here 'Mr Lydon' maybe one of the most iconic frontmen of all time but he is not a conventional singer if you catch my drift and at times his caterwauling was ear splittingly painful. He also took great delight in venting his spleen with a venomous rant against the catholic church and a humorous dig at the Irish anti smoking laws, he loves his ciggies. Death Disco , Disappointed ( a very angry thunderous bass driven and scathing ) Religon' & the encore 'Open up' were the highlights of a challenging night for me , there was no 'Annalisa' or 'Careering' though which was disappointing.
Post Gig
We met 'Paul Magill' again as we were leaving and he said it was the worst gig he'd ever been to , while I don't think it was as bad as that I do agree with him that it was sometimes very hard on the ears , but there was enough decent tunes performed to keep me reasonably happy but I certainly wouldn't pay 44.50 euro a skull to see 'PIL' live again thats for sure. Hopefully 'Johnny Rotten' will be resurrected and the 'Sex Pistols' will reform again soon . It must be time to top up the pension plan with some of that filthy lucre again .
The adventure continued when we tried a different route back to 'busaras' and we got lost again , but we were having a laugh with the 'Magills' and 'Larry' so it wasn't so bad plus it only took 2 sets of intructions to put us on the correct path this time . We got got to the station with a couple of minutes to midnight to spare and the coach home didn't turn up and we had to hang around until 01.00am waiting on the next bus home . An out of it hooded chav druggie approached me and slurred a request for me to help him roll a spliff and I told him to "f*** off" away with his drugs from $$ and me . I thought we were going to get into a punch up when he hooked up with a six of his pals outside a bar across the street , but in the end thankfully nothing happened .
We finally got home at 04.30 am and on reflection along with the benefit of hindsight I asked myself did I think it was worth all the effort and hassle ?, no it was not! But '$pikey $teve' thought 'PIL' were great and was well impressed. Am I getting too old for this lark?, noway and another gig awaits tonight. I can't help it if I like my r'n'r in short sharp blasts & not arty wank workouts.
"Good bye bye bye" more photos here
Joe Donnelly . Belfast 11.6.11.