The former Sex Pistol played The Lower Third for the second time since its launch; a new venue on Denmark Street only a stone’s throw away from the Sex Pistols’ former haunt on the same road. Glen Matlock played rhythm guitar with his band The Heavy Friends’ lineup of Neal X (guitar), Jim Lowe (bass), James Hallawell (keyboard) and Chris Musto (drums).
The band opened on regular Philistines’ track ‘Rattle Your Cage’, from their 2000 studio album ‘Open Mind’, moving onto Matlock’s last solo album, ‘Good To Go’, playing ‘Keep On Pushing’ – with Neal X’s streaming pedal effects – and Matlock’s Screaming Jay Hawkins tribute, ‘Hook In You’.
With his forthcoming studio album release expected later this year, Matlock performed some new songs including one already released as an acoustic lockdown track, ‘Consequences Coming’, featuring Hallawell’s keyboard solo. The band then did a new cover they had just learned earlier that day, Buddy Guy’s 1993 single, ‘I Go Crazy’; a slow blues revival song.
They played another new cover, KD Lang’s ‘Constant Craving’, with its drawn out chorus perfectly befitting Matlock’s voice, staccato drums and medley of guitar and keyboard with backing vocals. The band finished the set on two new album songs, the rhythm and blues track ‘Can’t Be Myself’ and new single, ‘Head On A Stick’, with Matlock’s descending chords, returning for an encore of Bob Dylan’s ‘Everybody Must Get Stoned’.
16/12/22: Glen Matlock @ The Lower Third, London.
Photos © Ayisha Khan.
© Ayisha Khan.