SEX PISTOLS

The cynicism of the reviews of previous reunions has now been replaced with deferential tones, and quite rightly. For every critic who believes they were nothing but an over-hyped shambles (which perhaps they did become after Sid Vicious replaced an allegedly too-conservative Glen Matlock), there’s another who would fight their corner as a band who are as relevant today as they were 30 years ago... probably more so in a world dominated by political correctness.

I’d argue that the Sex Pistols phenomenon was the most life-changing force in rock music since The Beatles, and even if they couldn’t match their songwriting prowess, many will agree that they equalled their cultural impact on a nation of disenfranchised youth.

That they couldn’t hold their own as musicians is nothing more than a myth upheld by chief swindler Malcolm McLaren — while the sullen mania of Johnny Rotten’s twisted warble could crack glass at 50 paces, the sound that bassist Matlock, guitar slinger Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook produced was among the tightest, fattest and most energised in rock’n’roll history. And if ‘God Save The Queen’, ‘Submission’ or ‘Pretty Vacant’ still can’t get your blood pumping, I recommend you check your wrist for a pulse.

This time, the original line-up have returned to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the release of their only studio album, Never Mind The Bollocks — the seminal punk album whose history is almost as fascinating as the band itself. The Pistols have also been resurrected to re-record ‘Anarchy In The UK’ and ‘Vacant’ for the computer game Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock, and along the way they seem to have harnessed much of the old fighting spirit for this rare bunch of November dates at Carling Academy Brixton, Manchester’s MEN Arena and the SECC in Glasgow.

The audience we saw assembled on the fourth of five sold-out nights in Brixton were a curious mixture of die-hard punk originals whose mohicans fell out many moons ago and burly fans in their forties and early fifties who were too chicken to brave the pogo stampede of the band’s late ’70s gigs.

Like a football crowd welcoming home their cup-winning side, and with Vera Lynn’s ‘There’ll Always Be An England’ ringing in their ears, they hurled their respect at the band as they walked on stage literally off the street, through the load-in doors, as if they’d just jumped off the No.59 bus. “Anyone here under 40?” enquired the frontman now known as Lydon, knowing full well that although a smattering of teenage nu-punks were there to check out if the Pistols could hack it better than Green Day like their dads insisted, this was indeed a very adult gathering.

It’s easy to forget in this age of tame celebrity just how shocking the Pistols were when they first appeared on the scene in ’76. There was no shock and outrage this time, just pure entertainment. If you can imagine an aggravated Ray Winstone laying into the guitar riffs, then that’s Steve Jones ’07 for you, whilst the trimmer Matlock and Cook remained equally workmanlike as his bitches in the engine room.

Admittedly, the gurning Lydon has lost much of his menace and now has a habit of delivering his vocal fury as if this was punk music hall. He no longer appears to want to “get pissed” and “destroy”, but the true spirit of anarchy is still bubbling within his 51 year old bones and his unique humour is worth the ticket price alone.

To paraphrase a very un-punk title (whose co-writer Jimmy Page was in the audience), the songs all remained very much the same with the original energy at meltdown levels, aided and abetted in no small way by a top sound crew.

GRIFFITHS’ CREW
Asked why the Sex Pistols chose to come out of hibernation this year, John Lydon said: “It’s the anniversary of punk and there’s been garbage rubbish bands performing all year trying to claim the credit for what existed 30 years ago. We just decided to put our foot down on that and tell a few home truths.

“It started with one gig in London, which expanded into five — didn’t think 25,000 people wanted to see us! And so... why not? Then an offer to play Manchester came along, and that’s 15,000... then Glasgow. And so, again, why not? We’re loyal and this is like ‘thank you’ to people who have been loyal to us. That’s how it should be.”

The Pistols decided to use an all-new crew for this short but intense tour, and tour/production manager Chris Griffiths pulled a team together from people he’d worked with over recent years. “I did the same for N*E*R*D/Pharrell Williams last year,” said Griffiths. “I have a pool of really good, hard working, talented people, and it gives our cousins from across the pond a good option for one-off Euro jaunts or even longer-term projects.

FOH engineer Walter Jaquiss, for example, got the gig as a result of working with Griffiths on Starsailor, Yoko Ono and Billy Preston with Motown’s Funk Brothers.

As Jaquiss explained: “Chris was looking to bring in people who had experience of shows that went out with little rehearsal, because that was definitely going to be the case with the Sex Pistols. The band had already done some warm-ups in Los Angeles so they had a fair idea of what they wanted to do, but they didn’t specifically rehearse for this UK tour, other than run through three or four songs at the start.”

Rather than tour with universal sound and lighting systems, the Pistols picked up local production at each of the three venues. Audiolease and Entec serviced the five Brixton shows, Adlib handled sound and lights for the Manchester gig, and in Glasgow, Adlib provided the lighting while EFX looked after sound.

Powered by Lab.gruppen fP 6400 amplifiers, Audiolease’s PA system married 16 of its own A2 2 x 15” subs with seven L-Acoustics V-DOSC cabinets per side and eight ARCS infills.
“I’ve never used the Audiolease gear before but it all works very well and it can certainly take some volume!” said Jaquiss. “It’s a very loud and powerful gig, although I’d like to think it’s not nasty sounding. We’re running at 110db from the stage, measured from the back of the room, but it’s still not up there with Motörhead, another Audiolease client.”

With Audiolease’s FOH babysitter Mike Osman at his side, Jaquiss explained the reasons why the Midas XL4 was the perfect choice of FOH console for the Brixton gigs. “You’d be mad to spec something that you didn’t have confidence in for a situation like this, where there’s been no rehearsal. In my view, there’s no better desk for this job than an XL4, along with the right outboard so that you have everything there ready in case it’s needed. I’ve got Yamaha SPXs and T.C. multi-effects in the rack, but I’m hardly touching them, if at all. It’s what comes with a regular Audiolease package.

“Everything I‘m doing is very standard. There are gates on the usual suspects, dbx 160A compressors on guitars and BVs, BSS DPR 901s on John’s radio mic, Summit TLA-100A tube compressors on groups for the kick and snare mics. We’re running straight out the board into Klark Teknik DN370 and then into the Dolby Lake Processor which is handling all system processing and filtering via a tablet for remote EQ-ing within the room. I’m running a matrix for the V-DOSC and ARCS elements so they work on separate EQs, but other than that it’s all very simple.

Hand Held Audio supplied two Shure Beta 58A radio mics (a main and a spare) while Audiolease — whose crew also included system tech Pat Fisher and monitor tech Phil Shenton — provided all the other mics with the exception of a few from Jaquiss’ own collection. The spec featured a Shure Beta 91 and 52 on kick drum, Beta 57A (snare top), Audio-Technica Artist Elite series AE3000 (snare bottom), Neumann 184s on hi-hat and ride cymbal, Beta 98s on toms, KSM 32s on overheads, and wired Beta 58As for BVs.

The lack of rehearsal meant that there wasn’t much of a clue about miking before the tour started, so Jaquiss dealt with this by putting up a mixture of mics for Steve Jones’ Marshall amps — a Shure KSM 32, an A-T AE2500 and a Sennheiser e609. For Matlock’s bass, there was a BSS active DI output was taken from his Fender amp.

RECORDING
While punk film-maker Julien Temple reprised his role with the Pistols by capturing the Brixton shows on November 9-10 for a forthcoming DVD release, Chris Thomas, the producer of Never Mind The Bollocks, was also present to supervise the audio recording of two shows and he was reportedly very satisfied with the sound crew’s work.

“Chris didn’t suggest any specific mic choices or placements. He and his recording engineer set up a Digidesign Pro Tools rig at stage left, took our feeds and just got on with it. That’s been the spirit of these gigs,” said Jaquiss, who admitted to being a mere six years old at the time of Bollocks’ release.

“What you see is what you get with these guys. There’s no extra musicians in the wings, no parts flying in off a hard drive. It’s just these four guys who come in, plug in and play, and it’s as raw as it gets.

“We had to tell Glen that we needed to put something in between his bass and the amp head — a tuner — otherwise we couldn’t mute him when he changed basses. He was all for plugging straight into the head. And Steve only uses a Danelectro pedal and a wah-wah. This is proper rock’n’roll.”

In monitor world, Kevin Charnley used a Midas XL3 with a rack of Klark Teknik DN360 graphics to mix to Audiolease’s proprietary BW2 wedges (including three pairs for Lydon), A2F sidefills and A2D drum fill.

Jaquiss was particularly looking forward to working with Adlib Audio at Manchester’s MEN Arena, along with its crew Hassane es Siahi, Steve Pattison, Kenny Perrin and Otto Kroymann. For this show, the XL4 was swapped for a Midas Heritage 3000, and Adlib fielded a JBL VerTec 4889/4888 line array with Adlib DF418 subs and FD2 fills, and a monitor system comprising Nexo Alpha sidefills, Adlib MP3 wedges and a 2 x 15" drum sub.
“I’m very happy that Adlib are doing Manchester,” said Jaquiss. “They’re standard of gear is great and their people are very knowledgeable, helpful, pleasant and professional. They really care about making a show work. Those are the things that make a real difference.”

At Glasgow’s SECC, Bathgate-based EFX Audio provided a Lab.gruppen-powered/XTA-processed L-Acoustics V-DOSC line array, with a Yamaha PM5000 at FOH and a Midas H3000 on stage. Monitors were L-Acoustics 115XT Hi-Q wedges and dV-Subs, and the EFX crew were Steve Murray, James Baptie, Barrie Pitt and Kyle Carter.

PATRIOTIC LIGHTING
Another crew member familiar to Chris Griffiths was lighting designer Dave Ross. They had worked together on the Scissor Sisters and Enter Shikari, and as Ross said, “I suppose they put me in the frame to be one of Chris’ cronies for these shows!”

While Entec was hired to service the Brixton run — with crew members Dave Black (chief), Cathy Stewart, Barry Branford, Peter Schofield, Nic Burlace and Martin Zeigert — Ross was given no brief for his lighting design, other than to use copious amounts of red and white light, and he was otherwise allowed free rein to do what he thought suited the band.

Ross explained: “Being the 30th anniversary of Never Mind The Bollocks, I wanted to do something that was reasonably retro but without the pain of having so many PAR cans. The rig is pretty much all wash lights and generic lighting — going too modern and ‘whizz-bang’ wouldn’t suit the music.

“John [Lydon] doesn’t like strobes or too much movement, and strangely for a punk band, they’re not keen on anything violent, lighting-wise. They prefer something more sedate on stage because the energy has to come from them and you don’t want to get in the way of their presence.”

For the first three-quarters of the show, the working environment at the back of the stage, with its various ladders and flight cases, was seen in its stark glory by the audience and only the flag of the Californian Republic (now home to Lydon and Jones) could qualify as any attempt at set dressing. Then came ‘God Save The Queen’, and a backdrop produced by Hangman in three days flat — featuring repetitions of Jamie Reid’s classic punk artwork for the single — was ceremoniously rolled down for the remainder of the night.

Ross ran the show on a Hog iPC in Wholehog III mode. “I prefer to use a USB key for my settings than to use a disc. It’s a console I get on with very well.”

The only automated lights were 30 Vari*Lite VL2402 washes, advised Ross. “I’m more of a MAC user myself, but this is what Entec supplied and I’m quite happy with the VLs. There’s a bit of movement, like some panning, but there’s nothing that swings out into the audience or stuff that you’d normally expect from moving lights.

“The colour changing is also minimal — I’ve tried to make it look like a show that could have been done in the ’70s, mainly for Julien Temple’s benefit because that’s what I believe he’s trying to achieve with the DVD.

“I’ve got a lot of DWEs and Molefays — six 4-lite blinders on the front truss to pick up the audience and about 50 2-lites on the rear towers that kind of do things you’d do now with PixelLines but in an old school way.

“Then I have four bars of six PARs that provide the bulk of the light on the band, three FOH spots for the front line, some ETC Source Fours to pick up Paul on drums, and a couple of Studio Due City Colors that light the back wall metalwork and, later, the Hangman backdrop.”

Although red and white light was the original basis of Ross’s plan, blue gradually crept in and he was later allowed to add a few additional hues to form some different textures. “There’s definitely an English theme to the whole thing and, yes, I do my best play up to that with the lighting design!”

At the MEN Arena, Adlib Lighting replicated the VL looks with Robe ColorWash 1200E ATs and supplied a four-man crew — Tim Spielman, Stuart Gray, Mike Summerfield and Dave Eldridge. Then, for the Glasgow SECC date, Scott Munro’s locally-based S.M. Lighting provided a similar rig, crewed by Andy Stevens, Robin Haddow, Jared Hutsby and Will Potts.

Although not the smallest of production teams I’ve ever seen on the road, Griffiths presided over a tight team that could accurately be described as all wheat and no chaff. As he told me: “You don’t have to spend a lot of money to make a show look and sound good... although sometimes it helps!”

Transam trucked the band’s backline amps (on hire from Matt Snowball) and British Rail/London Underground was the favoured mode of crew transport. The back-to-basics approach was also extended to tour catering, in that there wasn’t any — I followed Jaquiss and Ross down the Stockwell Road to a Chinese take-away!

When the young Johnny Rotten said his original goodbye to the Pistols’ audience at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom in January 1978, he famously whined “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” Few of the sweaty punters would have felt conned when they left Brixton to the strains of ‘The White Cliffs Of Dover’, nearly 30 years later.

It’s possible that many of them will come to regard these shows as the ultimate farewell to their punk youth... as if they’d finally succumbed to the harsh reality of middle age.