Sex Pistols at Brixton Academy

The offer of a ticket to see the Sex Pistols at Brixton Academy was one I could not refuse. I was at Southampton University when punk burst on to the scene and while I did manage to see The Stranglers live then there was little more that I could do that listen to John Peel and buy the records. I bought all the early Sex Pistols singles and the Never Mind the Bollocks album the day that they were released.

Thirty years later I saw them live. The show was much as expected as they have a limited back catalogue to fall back on but that was fine. The Sex Pistols started losing their creditability the first time round when they did some ludicrous covers just to get material released. (My Way was a worthy exception to the failures).

We were treated to all of Never Mind the Bollocks and just a couple of the stringer covers, e.g. Iggy Pop's No Fun and Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner, which was a surprising second encore. The four early singles still stand out as the strongest songs and I particularly liked the first encore of Bodies and Anarchy in the UK.

The crowd was more subdued than I expected, though I was sprayed with beer quite a few times. There was an odd mix of fans from the 70s and young kids and it was the oldies who tended to lead the way in the mindless body hurling that passes for dancing these days.

Overall it was a very good evening and I'm hoping that they'll tour again before too long.