"You’re what
I call a passive audience," said John Lydon of Public Image Ltd.
at the outset of their impromptu gig last month at the Ritz (where they
replaced an indisposed Bow Wow Wow.) Minutes later bottles were whizzing
through the air, a chair was flung from the balcony, and the group was
hustled offstage by security in a melee that left several persons injured,
considerable property damage, and plenty of ill will all around. The
reason for the fracas was PiL’s insistence on playing behind the
club’s videoscreen and performing to the packed house via simultaneous
broadcast: "live video," as guitarist Keith Levene dubbed
it. But the audience—many of whom waited hours in a downpour for
tickets—was not amused by the projected concert, which musically
consisted of bleepy dub fragments punctuated by occasional drum bursts,
nor by the interspliced (and utterly inane) pre-recorded PiL video material.
Lusty booing began and bottles started to fly. As objects continued
to pelt the stage ("You’re not throwing enough," Lydon
taunted), the crowd down front got their licks in by yanking the floor
sheet out from under the group, dragging instruments and amplifiers
with it. While Lydon chanted, "New York, New York, it’s a
helluva town," a furious Levene appeared in front of the screen
to berate the crowd and was tackled by a roadie seconds before an attempted
Heineken lobotomy. The band then fled the maelstrom.
"They were an angry
mob, and that’s that," explained a surprisingly unsneering
Lydon at a press conference two days later. A more combatative Levene,
looking like a charmless Artful Dodger, placed full blame on the audience
and declared he was "satisfied" with the concert. "I
have to be ... it was that intense. The impact was immaculate."
Some were reminded of the lyrics to the band’s first song: "Public
Image, you got what you wanted." |