15/11/2021
John Lydon at the climax of his "I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right" one-man-show tour at Highbury'a Union Chapel this weekend.
"He's just so fu**in' funny!" commented a builder built like the proverbial sh*t-house on his way back into the theatre for another round of punishment.
Indeed no-one there got out alive as local lad Johnny fumed and fi**ed way his way through his past life and much to say about the present. This included no holds barred opinions about whingeing footballers - '"You wouldn't have heard George Best complaining about that" - politician Dianne Abbot and of course his former Pistols band-mates who recently won a major court case against JL in order to get their music played in a film being made by Disney.
"Steve, Paul and Glen are the lowest forms of life," he snarled, "spiteful, vindictive and prawns easily manipulated by Mickey Mouse. Steve Jones could hardly read. Those who do the least hate you the most.'
As a means of asserting his own literary credentials, Lydon proclaimed his love of Charles Dickens and Ted Hughes, thanks to his mum reading to him at an early age "... not like those toffee-nosed counts coming out of university waffling about Marxism when they don't know what it means."
Then came a good kicking for Sid Vicious "who was as dumb as a door-bell and a coat-hanger for every silly fashion which came along. We asked our friend Lemmy to try and teach him to play the bass and he came back with one of the worst school reports you could imagine."
Questions from the floor ranged from the inane, croissant or pain chocolat (answer: "you silly c**t!") to what was the first record you bought. This turned out to be Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town by Kenny Roger's which earned an icy response from his father, "Why did you buy that, you fu**ing c**t?"
The same charming epithet was pledged to me, right in front of JL on a stolen front row seat but I seemed to be in good company; Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and, of course Malcolm McLaren all received a bashing before a scorching rendition of Bodies, performed karaoke style, complete with an explanation of its actual lyrical content:
"My mother had three miscarriages and it was left to me to get rid if the buckets of mess and puss and slime and flesh. The last one had a tiny hand."
Yes, anger is still an energy but our host couldn't resist telling the story about the gig the S*x Pistols played for the impoverished progeny of striking firemen in Huddersfield 44 years ago.
"It was almost as messy as the miscarriages when the big cream cake we brought got chucked around and ended up all over us. The kids got it more clearly than the adults but then we're all kids at heart - that's the best thing to be."
