Everywhere you look: old blokes. Old blokes running the world. Old blokes running for President. Old blokes telling women what they can and can't do with their bodies. Old blokes running scared when a woman stands up to them. Old blokes stirring up racism and then saying, “Aw, you can’t say anything these days! Some of my best friends are… Aw, fuck, they’re old white blokes, aren’t they? Sorry, forgot who I was for a minute...” Old blokes in trainers and tracky-bottoms – the kind of old blokes who can’t do the fucking dishes or make a bed – rioting. Old blokes getting a concrete block right in the knackers for their troubles and a nation pumping their 'Like' buttons, dropping their phones and rising as one in solidarity. Hurrah! Thank you, Old Bloke-with–his-testicles-in-tatters, for reminding us what really matters.
Old blokes: What is it with them and when will they go away?
The Sex Pistols wondered this back in 1977 and here we are, almost half a century later, jumping up and down to three of the old buggers and thinking: It really doesn’t get much better than this.
At the front, there’s Frank Carter – at the age of 40, a veritable toddler – landing what is surely every red-haired punk’s dream job. Eyes bulgin’, cheer-leadin’, sneer-leadin’ – Frank understands the brief perfectly. He’s a lightning rod for punk energy. It crackles in his lungs and shoots lasers out of his eyes.
Obviously, it shouldn’t work: Rotten was the guy that made the Pistols special. The lyrics, the voice, the eyeballs. Rotten made every other rock singer of the time look like a middle-class careerist. But John Lydon, intent on being the most obnoxious man in the room, no matter what the cost – he loved the Queen! Trump’s a great guy! – can’t do this anymore. The old pantomime villain would get in the way. Frank, free of baggage (to me, at least), reminds you of the power of those songs and what they mean now.
They shouldn’t mean anything, 47 years later. They should be curios and museum pieces. Back when Never Mind The Bollocks was released, the country was in a right old state: right-wing politics was on the rise, immigration was being blamed for all our ills and families who’d lived in the UK for decades – whose culture (language, music, cuisine) had totally influenced, informed and improved “British culture” – were under attack. The focus on immigration disguised a broader attack on the poor, no matter what their colour: right-wing policies designed to take from the poor and give to the rich – a system of privilege, propped up and legitimised by an out-of-touch and overpaid Royal family.
Meanwhile, music – the counter-culture that had promised so much in the 60s – was dominated by tired old millionaire rock stars and disposable pop stars: pretty but kinda vacant. A cynical marketing exercise to flog merch and over-priced tickets.
Luckily, that’s all in the past. But even in this completely different world, the songs still resonate. Bodies is ugly, explosive, nihilistic. Anti-abortion in sentiment, if letting people have their own opinion troubles you, you can also just take it as disgusted body horror (“Throbbing squirm, gurgling bloody mess/I'm not a discharge”). No Feelings takes classic Townshend chords and adds genuine fury and self-loathing. EMI is a riotous fuck you.
The anthems – Holidays In The Sun, Pretty Vacant, Anarchy In The UK and God Save The Queen – are, of course, next level, full of great quotable lines (“Oh when there's no future/How can there be sin/We're the flowers/In the dustbin”; “Your future dream is a shopping scheme”; “A cheap holiday in other people's misery”), driven by three old blokes who wrote the punk rock rule book and love ripping it up.
Bringing the melodies: Glen Matlock – the boring goody-two-shoes of legend – never looked so good. Cookie: a diamond, a punk rock powerhouse. Jonesy: a loveable old Jack-the-lad with guitar tone to die for. (And a bunch of us old blokes pogoing down the front almost do. We are a screaming fucking bloody mess.)
Sheer joy. They should tour it everywhere. God save their mad parade.
The Sex Pistols WIth Frank Carter play the O2 Forum Kentish Town on September 26. Tickets for the gig will go on-sale on Friday, August 16, at 9am.
