On my notes for The Molotovs tonight, I had written the following: The Libertines, Billy Bragg, The Clash.
If you fancy imagining a cocktail (sorry!) of all three (and it does sound fun, doesn’t it?), then the London trio are here to help.
The brother-and-sister-centered outfit—Mathew and Issey Carts on guitar/vocals and bass, respectively—are here to make an impression, and frankly, songs like “Johnny Don’t Be Scared” and “More More More” will do that.
More energetic than a three-year-old on a bouncy castle after mainlining sugar all day, “Wasted Youth” has a hint of Mott The Hoople-type cockiness, and Issey’s bass anchors down “Newsflash.”
There’s a suitably scuzzy and scrappy cover of “Suffragette City,” reimagined as if Bowie had been sniffing glue all day, and “No Time To Talk” flies by in a blur of colour.
Before they end their action-packed half an hour with “C’Mon Now,” Mathew points out that the last time they played the second city, it was the tiny Dead Wax venue up the road.
Given the way The Molotovs exploded tonight, they’d best think about bigger stages.
“Give it up,” offers Frank Carter about 15 minutes into The Sex Pistols set, “for the best punk band in the world.”
Then he adds: “But this one isn’t for them; it’s for you.”
What follows is something about always finding us out at lunch; you might know it. It’s called “Pretty Vacant.”
It’s one of a sizable number of the 16 songs that The Pistols shoot out in 65 minutes here that can be labelled “iconic.”
You know that because they were together for just two and a half years, released only one album, offended everyone that needs to be, and yet still, 3,000 people pack into the Academy in the Birmingham rain to see them play.
And like all iconic bands, there are generations here: lifers, those who were there, their kids—maybe grandchildren too—and those like MV. Your humble scribe was just over two years old when “Never Mind The Bollocks….Here’s The Sex Pistols” came out, and yet I listened to it yesterday. Like all the best stuff, if it came out tomorrow, you’d buy it.
Three of their original members are here—Cook, Matlock, and Jones—as they play “Holidays In The Sun” and “Seventeen” before you even pause.
The classics are just that too. “Bodies” sends people into a frenzy. She might have been a girl from Birmingham, but it’s our song now. But it’s not just about that album, as “Silly Thing” proves.
The thing about “Never Mind…..” though, is that it’s just very, very good. “Liar” is insanely catchy, while “God Save The Queen” still nails the absurdity of the monarchy.
Before “Satellite,” Carter gets himself into the crowd, ending up high on the shoulders of people halfway back before crowd-surfing to the stage via a punch in the teeth and losing his mic power pack. “See if you can find it, else they’ll charge me £70,” he says. He gets it back.
If you’d asked me when I saw him at The Rainbow Courtyard back in 2015 if he’d ever front The Sex Pistols, then I might have said yes. He’s a fantastic frontman and probably the only, if certainly the best, choice to fill in for the Rent-A-Gob, Brexit-backing, butter salesman who used to do it.
The Stooges’ “No Fun” makes for an experience, but no one has the feeling they’ve been cheated with “Problems” and “E.M.I.”
The dapper Matlock returns to the stage, combing his hair, before “My Way” is given a quasi-Vicious makeover.
Which only leaves one. There is “Anarchy In The UK” after all, and it’s depressing how prescient these songs still are. It still sounds glorious too.
So did the whole thing. Yes, okay, in 2024 it doesn’t have the power to shock, but this music has stood the test of time so much better than nearly everyone else. Watch that hour and come to any other conclusion.
Never mind all the rest of the bollocks around; we’ve still got the Sex Pistols.
