In our review of last week’s second London fundraiser, we said that, “Despite what many critics would have you believe, the Pistols at Bush Hall are not good despite the absence John Lydon – rather, they are great because of it. In the group’s later iterations, first in the ’90s and then in the ’00s, it was John, playing the role of Johnny Rotten, who cut the cynical pantomime figure screeching his way over songs through which his vocals once cut like razor wire. It was him that made it all feel like an exercise in give-us-your-cash nostalgia. Naturally, the group’s musical core – Paul Cook on drums, Glen Matlock on bass and the forensic Steve Jones on guitar – grew to hate him. In 2024, meanwhile, the injection of fresh blood, and fresh energy, centre-stage means that the Pistols cohere as a unit, as a complete band, in a way they didn’t always manage back in the ’70s, let alone in subsequent years. Up front, by the barrier, the purity of it all is a joy to behold.”
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