Live – Post-Punk Music

SEX PISTOLS FT FRANK CARTER @ ROYAL ALBERT HALL, LONDON

As part of the Teenage Cancer Trust series of events at the Royal Albert Hall, the Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter performed the band’s seminal 1977 debut album ‘Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols’ as part of a wider tour the remaining original members, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock, have taken to the road nationally and internationally since they reformed the band without frontman John Lydon last summer.

Opening on ‘Holidays in the Sun’ and soon after performing ‘Pretty Vacant’ – with Jones’ rusty, heavy guitar sound – it soon became evident that it was sacrilege to have Carter, with his rough, scraggy voice, desecrate the classics, but he worked the audience well, diving into it to crowd-surf during the latter song. He also did a much better job at his favourite song, ‘Bodies’, as he struggled to get back on stage with Jones and Matlock singing on backing vocals.

Carter also performed vocals from the middle of a circle pit he whipped up for ‘Silly Thing’, although his crowd surfing did interfere in his abilities to keep up the verses and took attention away from the founding members on stage. The band’s infamous single, ‘God Save the Queen’, sounded more like a karaoke act; Carter having a brattier voice than Lydon, although he kept up the rhythm of the song in time and egged the whole venue into singing, “No future” to finish the track when his jokes had otherwise dropped short.

One of the best moments of the night, however, came in the way of cover track ‘No Fun’ by the Stooges, which saw Jones’ perform a melting pedal guitar solo and band introductions with further solos by each member, the unpretentious Jones playing a single high pitched note on his Les Paul Custom that was amazingly reminiscent of a synth key. Carter also handled ‘Problems’ with brute force.

The Pistols returned for an encore that included ‘My Way’ in homage to Sid Vicious’ solo cover of the 1969 Sinatra classic, with Jones and Matlock sitting down for the number that Carter could not be faulted for effort. They ended the night on ‘Anarchy in the UK’, with its chorus ringing out from the whole venue and injecting some energy into what was otherwise a dull and corporate evening. Although the three members have done well to bring back the original music for a new generation of listeners, doing so without frontman Johnny Rotten has alienated such famous lyrics from the music creating a strange separation of elements with this line-up.

24/03/25: Sex Pistols ft Frank Carter @ Royal Albert Hall, London.

Photos © John Stead.

NEGATIVE APPROACH + CIRCLE JERKS @ O2 SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE, LONDON

Negative Approach and Circle Jerks joined Descendents on their European tour, with the former on support and fronted by John Brannon, whose vocals consist of primal screaming and plenty of angst. They performed from their only studio album ‘Tied Down’ including favourites such as ‘Pressure’, ‘Evacuate’ and their single ‘Dead Stop’, with its tribal drumming, as well as the marching beats of ‘Live Your Life’. They were later joined on stage by guest Thurston Moore, who played guitar with them on ‘Genocide’ and ‘Nothing’, the former of which saw him perform an earth shattering noise introduction and the latter with humming, high pitched guitar feedback before Brannon broke into the lyrics.

The band also covered Sham 69’s ‘Borstal Breakout’.

Circle Jerks hail from the punk rock melting pot of Southern California, with Morris naming The Weirdos, The Alleycats, The Last, Black Flag, Redd Kross and LA’s Wasted Youth as some of the bands from the region. Formed of founding members Keith Morris (vocals) and Greg Hetson (guitar), along with Xander Schloss (bass) and new drummer Joey Castillo, the band went straight into the opening track on their 1980 debut album, ‘Group Sex’, with ‘Deny Everything’, which they followed by ‘Stars and Stripes’ which featured a guitar solo by Hetson. They then performed the band’s well known tracks from the same album, ‘Back Against the Wall’ and the clattering drums of ‘I Just Want Some Skank’, with the latter meshing into the dark riffs of ‘Beverly Hills’. Morris then issued a disclaimer about the band not spreading the word of the US government.

They moved onto the next block of tracks, this time from the band’s 1983 studio album, ‘Golden Shower of Hits’, playing songs that Morris co-wrote with Hetson, including ‘When the Shit Hits the Fan’, the dual layers of ‘Under the Gun’ as well as ‘Coup d’Etat’, with Morris’ trademark screaming vocals. They played their Garland Jeffreys cover of ‘Wild in the Streets’, taken from their second studio album of the same name, which Morris said was the closest to a ‘punk rock hit’ that they ever had and reminiscing about it receiving airplay on Southern California’s KROQ radio alongside Agent Orange, The Adolescents and Amoeba. Circle Jerks then returned to their debut album with early song, ‘Live Fast Die Young’. Morris shared some more hardcore history with the audience; growing up with bands such as The Germs, The Screamers, X, The Eyes, Controllers and Middle Class, he explained the origin of cover track ‘I, I & I’, which was co-written by The Flesh Eaters’ Chris Desjardins (Chris D.) and The Plugz’ Tito Larriva and features on Circle Jerks’ ‘Wonderful’ album. They also further into their later albums with ‘I Don’t’, written by Hetson and Schloss for the band’s 1987 ‘VI’ album.

Circle Jerks ended their set on more songs from ‘Group Sex’ including ‘World Up My Ass’, ‘Wasted’ and ‘Red Tape’ and the band’s cover of the Soft Boys’ ‘I Wanna Destroy You’.

15/03/25: Negative Approach + Circle Jerks @ O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London.