Music review: Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter
Far from being a museum exhibit, the Sex Pistols’ one-off concert at Hindley Street Music Hall was a dynamic, authentic and chaotic night of audience-inclusive punk.
I didn’t quite know what to expect of three original Sex Pistols performing their band’s groundbreaking punk album from 1977, Never Mind the Bollocks. It was intriguing that three of the four people who wrote most of the album’s tracks — Glen Matlock, Paul Cook and Steve Jones — would be playing them. But it wouldn’t have surprised me to find that the new lead singer, Frank Carter, was, perhaps, a ‘poser’. How wrong was I!
Carter started the show by acknowledging the people in the balconies and commenting on the loveliness of the venue. His polite manner was already different from the Pistol’s pissed-off former lead singer, Johnny Rotten. And Carter’s sharp suit signalled that he wasn’t going to dress like Rotten and attempt a rotten imitator show. I liked him already.
A former frontman of UK hardcore act Gallows and his own group, Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes, Carter was the ultimate showman. With his manic jumping and body movements, he knew how to stir up the antsy crowd in the mosh pit. With moshing, the lines between performers and audience can blur, and Carter took this to the next level.
Punk shows, like love, aren’t for the faint-hearted. But there’s a mosh pit code of conduct, and the ideal is to express aggression in a friendly, supportive way. To achieve this paradox, there needs to be trust. Carter had a lot of trust when he crowd-surfed across the audience. When some knucklehead broke the trust by touching him inappropriately, Carter called him out with a few C-words and F-bombs. Carter was polite but also assertive — as he needed to be in this chaotic show.
Carter then emerged in the middle of the mosh pit and said he wanted the biggest circle pit in the world, resulting in a whirlwind of people running around him and knocking others over while the Pistols played. Even with a bodyguard beside him, for Carter to be inside this (Sid) vicious circle was brave. He eventually reached the rear of the mosh pit to stand above the mixing desk, where he admired the venue’s elegant chandelier. He’d unleashed anarchy, but still appreciated good light fittings.
Although there was a risk such a charismatic ringleader would, chandelier-like, outshine the other band members, their musical and cultural legacy were also part of the show’s force.
Bass guitarist Glen Matlock, dressed in black apart from a red and white scarf, looked like a suave, supercool Spanish film star. He also made comic gestures, such as retrieving a comb from atop an amp to comb his well-coiffed silver hair and moustache. It would have been good to see more of these touches.
Drummer Paul Cook’s frantic drumming helped fire up the crowd. Although guitarist Steve Jones didn’t reveal much personality, his guitar playing was a crucial part of the band’s powerful sound. As the Pistols have only three instruments, this is no small achievement.
After performing all of the album’s songs, from ‘Holidays in the Sun’ to ‘EMI’, along with other easter eggs, such as the surprisingly melodic ‘Silly Thing’ — the band returned for an encore. The choices were perfect.
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The first was ‘My Way’, which the late Sid Vicious had famously covered with the Pistols. Rather than copying vacuous Vicious, Carter gave the song his own spin, again demonstrating his individuality. The final song was the Pistol’s iconic ‘Anarchy in the UK’, which was executed brilliantly.
This new incarnation generated appropriate anarchy at their Adelaide show, and with Carter up front proved that the group and its back catalogue remains potent after nearly half a century — still the Sex Pistols, not the Sex Pustules.
Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter performed at Hindley Street Music Hall on Sunday April 7