Public Image Limited Brixton Academy 27th May 1986

A quick musical diversion from The Stranglers now.

This gig meant a lot to me, it was my second London gig (for those interested, the first, a few weeks before this one was Peter & The Test Tube Babies and The Long Tall Texans at the 100 Club). All gigs prior to this had been in the Brighton area, with an occasional trip to Guildford.

PiL had at this point released 'Album' and were riding high on the commercial success of the classic 'Rise' single. The gig promised to be a good one, besides which as a young punk, I was slightly in awe of John Lydon. The gig was great and certainly not without incident. Then as now Lydon had (an entirely reasonable) aversion to spitting and even as late as 1986 some in the audience had failed to move with the times and persisted in hawking up material to share with the band and with 'Ole man Rotten in particular! He got increasingly frustrated throughout the gig as his attempts to stem the gloopy flow by persuasion failed.

At one point he vowed never to play London again (thankfully he didn't mean it maaaan) and Public Image was cut short as he left the stage. At other times in the gig, I recall someone getting onto the stage to attack him, whilst on the right hand side of the stage someone scaled the rather large PA before dropping his trousers at the top.

In short, a great night, and certainly a far cry from the 'We are not worthy' relationship that we have seen with London audiences at more recent PiL/Pistols gigs.

Album was great and 1987's Happy? had its moments but unfortunately what followed in 9 and That What Is Not had little of the creativity that characterised earlier PiL material. Now, as they are recording a new album with the core of the band as was in 1986, I wait with baited breath hoping for something really memorable.

Thanks to the original uploader, bigboxoftapes.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QCA49DT3

NEW LINK: http://rapidshare.com/files/1307066980/PiL%20Brixton%2027.5.1986.zip

01 Kashmir
02 FFF
03 Low Life
04 Fishing
05 Pop Tones
06 Pretty Vacant
07 Banging the Door
08 The Flowers of Romance
09 Bags
10 Round
11 Home
12 Public Image
13 Rise
14 Annalisa