Live - Gig Review
Public Image Limited
- The Chalk
- Brighton
- 27/9/23
John Lydon and his Public Image cohorts looked keen to play on Wednesday night at The Chalk in Brighton. Very early in the proceedings John commented that "The sound is great tonight", relishing the boisterous crowd and their obvious appreciation of all his words of wisdom.
We should all know of John's recent loss of lifetime love and companion Nora Forster and from his previous comments venturing out on this tour maybe a good idea to deal with the grief, not to dwell on the current emotional load on his heart. He has openly struggled with the grief since her passing but on stage Wednesday evening he looked clearly focussed as the head of PIL.
The band sounded well rehearsed and steamed though the library of the PIL back catalogue as listed at the bottom of this review.
PIL also have new songs and an album End of the world to promote, they played three songs from this Penge, Being stupid again and Car chase the latter looking to be a firm pleaser with the sold out crowd.
Poptones is a personal favourite with it's hypnotic bass line and Post Punk Jazz arrangement makes this for me the epitomy of what John's PIL vision was all about. Scott Firth on bass knows how to get that gritty heavy bass sound that is the anchor for a lot of the PIL songs.
Other highlights were Death Disco and Warrior before the encore of the debut single and Rise give the gathered die hards what they want.
As John Lydon signs off at the end he looked up to the heavens and asked for all of us to say hello to Nora with him, this was duly done and spontaneously a chant of "Nora... Nora" broke out which stopped John in his steps towards his exit... he sincerely looked choked. The world felt as one for that moment.
Setlist
Penge
Albatross
Being Stupid Again
This Is Not a Love Song
Poptones
Death Disco
The Room I Am In
Flowers of Romance
Memories
Car Chase
The Body
Warrior
Shoom
Encore:
Public Image
Open Up
Rise
Review by Dan Reddick
Photos by Dan Reddick