As debacles go, Public
Image’s Los Angeles "anti-rock" debut was a wild success.
As in a pitched battle, customers
assaulted the stage and sometimes each other in this old boxing arena.
PiL counter-attacked with a wall of drums and bass mixed uninvitingly
loud and a jangly, intense guitar mixed barely below this. Live, PiL
experiments less with tone and texture than on record, sticking to mostly
bass-heavy rock. The vocal sound, as always, was alienated, hollow and
dire, the lyrics gloomy and disjointed, the melodies scant and repititious.
PiL assaults easy targets:
our complacency and the insanity of blind good manners in a dying world.
The singer gloomily mocks well-manicured lives, while the band seethes
with a manic hum. The guitar expresses the chaotic anguish hidden behind
both the singer’s gloom and society’s polite acquiescence
to a life of "twisted amenities" in "allotted slots"
("No Birds").
Yet PiL claim that it is
not a "political" band, and that entertainment is the first
priority. Paradoxically, in "Poptones" they tell of people
figuratively eating each other alive while listening to pop music; "Poptones"’
initially inviting guitar line becomes drab and anti-pop in its monotonous
repetition. One is entertained by PiL only if one agrees with their
point of view. They have neither set out to spread a message, nor to
cop rock’s "entertaining" brains-in-crotch attitudes.
The lyrics and the entertainment simply come from representing musically
who they are.
The high point of their May
4 show was the song "Public Image," which attacks the money
making attitudes that reduce musicians to "product" while
fostering a ludicrous star system. The tune is based on Lydon’s
experience as Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten, who attracted the very worshippers
he initially scorned.
Now, two years and a new
band later, all his old battles have yet to be won. The morons are still
out in force.
When Wobble and Atkins come
on alone to play five minutes of bass and drums, many in the crowd still
don’t get it. Levene and Lydon join the show. As the band unleashes
"Careering" and "Annalisa" over a clear sound system,
the crowd heaves and pitches, showering PiL with punk spit. It is not
well taken.
The sneering, abusive Sex
Pistols expected to get spit on. But tonight, Lydon had seemed almost
friendly, and willing to entertain. He dances, skanking loosely in a
tight black deacon’s robe. He regards his raiment, now covered
with spit.
Levene looks blasé, uninvolved,
at times hurting the music with only nominal guitar playing. For all
the "anti-rock" elements, though, the sound is not unlike
good rock and roll.
The spit continues to fly,
undiminished by Lydon’s sarcasm. "The likes of you and me
is an embarrassment" he sings in "Chant," as he sprays
the crowd with beer, squatting to take whatever comes back. His vocal
is anguished in "Swan Lake," but Levene is playing with lessening
energy until, disheartened and mad, he stops altogether. Atkins has
long since retired to a rather small corner of his large drum kit, but
with Wobble he cranks out the song for several more minutes, while Levene
and Lydon half-heartedly wander the stage, sing, and noodle on synthesizer.
PiL regroups with "Poptones,"
Lydon repeating the title with dire, drawn out moans. His sarcastic
epithets continue through "Religion." The band appears to
go through the motions, but still sounds good.
Customers yank monitors off
the stage. Somehow, being surrounded by catastrophe provides and appropriate
setting for the gloomy music; the prophets of doom are surrounded by
present disaster. They play on. It sounds great. Still, the hassles
have killed a lot of energy. Lydon mourns an appropriate "Bad Baby,"
first sharing the mike with a kid in the crowd, then bringing him onstage
to sing it alone. Lydon hands him a lyric book, striking another blow
for "anti-rock," deflating star images with an "anyone
can do this" attitude. He encourages the ten year old, exhorts
the crowd, and some of the show’s energy returns.
Suddenly, when PiL unleashes
"Public Image," all the energy is back. But this is a night
of extremes, and the energy is lost when Lydon tells the kid to make
the next song up. The kid hasn’t a clue. Lydon sings a few lines;
the band, as always, grinds on. A few fans thrash and holy-roll around
on the stage, while the first kid adds to the chaos by playing synthesizer
notes at random. Finally the song dissolves in disparate nothings. A
short pause. "Ah, we’ve had enough. Goodnight." Lydon
shakes the kid’s hand. Half the crowd sits in wonder. The other
half claps for a long time. More fights break out. The band is gone.
Though I wanted less spectacle
and more music, I was definitely entertained. |