I last tried to see Public Image Ltd. thirty years ago when a friend of mine in high school won tickets to see them play in Indianapolis. She couldn’t make the show, or just didn’t want to go, and told me she’d give me the tickets once she picked them up from the radio station that held the conotest. She kept avoiding me as the day of the show drew closer. I tracked her down the day of the show and asked about the tickets. She blushed and admitted that she didn’t make it to the station to get them. I was out of luck.
PiL went through many lineup changes and hiatuses and went on many tours that never came close to my neck of the woods since then. I finally got tickets to see them at Chicago’s Thalia Hall…and learned a couple weeks before the show that I was going to have to cancel the trip because a co-worker would still be recovering from surgery. I was, as you can guess, bummed about that.
As fate would have it, however, my co-worker recovered faster than anyone imagined he would and I ended up with the night off…although I still had to work at 6am the next day. I wouldn’t let that stop me, however.
PiL started their set with the low-key “Deeper Water,” and then slowly ramped up the energy from there forward. John Lydon stood like a professor at a podium in front of his microphone and sheet music stand, delivering a lesson on how to own a stage and spit venom (all the while alternating sips of water and straight bourbon from the bottle between songs). He even shimmed and shook a bit on “Bodies.” The crowd was firmly in his hand when they followed it with “Disappointed.”
They were in a great groove when they reached “Death Disco,” “Cruel,” and “I’m Not Satisfied.” The crowd went nuts for “This Is Not a Love Song,” and “Rise” gave me chills after finally getting to hear it live after three decades. Album is one of my favorite records of all time, and getting to hear John Lydon sing even one cut from it was worth the wait.
“Does this look like a fucking cruise ship?” Lydon asked a drunk man in front of the stage as they came back out for the encore. “We don’t do requests.” That guy and his drunk girlfriend were soon removed by security while Lydon waved goodbye to them and he and PiL tore through “Public Image” and “Open Up.”
This was the first show in a long time at which I bought a tour shirt that cost more than twenty dollars. I have a hard time paying more than that for any T-shirt. The official tour shirt was $30.00. I hesitated. My wife said, “Thirty years, man.” She was right. A dollar for every year I waited was a fair price, and completely worth it.
Keep your mind open.
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