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Posts Tagged ‘John Lydon’

Public Image Ltd.: North American Tour

LYDON AND THE LADS VISIT U.S. TO CELEBRATE 30TH ANNIVERSARY

PiL

Since returning in December 2009 for seven monumental concerts in the United Kingdom – their first shows in 17 years – Public Image Ltd. (PiL) now continue into 2010 with a headlining North American tour starting Saturday, April 17 in San Francisco.

After fronting the Sex Pistols, John Lydon formed Public Image Ltd in 1978. With their experimental sound fusing rock, dance, folk, ballet, pop and dub, PiL are regarded as producing some of the most diverse music of the ’70s and ’80s.

The North American tour will be preceded by a special performance at the Coachella on Friday, April 16 (opening day of the three-day event) in Indio, CA, and a recently announced intimate performance on Tuesday, April 13 at Club Nokia in Los Angeles. Tickets for the Club Nokia show go on sale Saturday, March 20 at 10:00 a.m. These dates are the band’s first concerts in the United States in 18 years.

Cited as one of the most innovative and influential bands in music history, PiL return to a country where they enjoyed a special relationship throughout their career for what are set to be stunning shows. The North American dates will be followed by a series of high-profile summer European Festival appearances. John Lydon (vocals), Lu Edmonds (guitar), Bruce Smith (drums) and Scott Firth (bass) earned critical and public acclaim for their concerts in December 2009, with many British media outlets championing them as the shows of the year.

“I sound like a bag of kittens thrown down the staircase,” says Lydon with characteristic “charm.”

2010 sees the 30th anniversary of the band’s first U.S. tour and also their U.S TV debut on American Bandstand, where Lydon invited the audience onstage to dance with the band! Host Dick Clark famously introduced their appearance as “a memorable moment in rock n roll, something special and interesting.” With a wide and varied back catalogue spanning three decades, Public Image Ltd will be showcasing the unique sounds of tracks such as “Public Image,” “This Is Not A Love Song,” “Rise,” and “Disappointed,” with many further surprises in store.

Check out JamBase’s recent video salute to John Lydon.

PiL Tour Dates

Fri 4/16 – Indio, CA – Empire Polo Field/Coachella
Sat 4/17 – San Francisco, CA – Grand Ballroom @ Regency Center
Tue 4/20 – Seattle, WA – Showbox at The Market
Wed 4/21 – Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom
Fri 4/23 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Depot
Sat 4/24 – Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre
Mon 4/26 – Kansas City, MO – Midland Theatre
Sun 5/2 – Chicago, IL – House of Blues
Tue 5/4 – Boston, MA – Royale Boston
Wed 5/5 – Boston, MA – Royale Boston
Fri 5/7 – Toronto, ON – Kool Haus
Sat 5/8 – Montreal, QC – Theatre L’Olympia de Montreal
Tue 5/11 – Baltimore, MD – Rams Head Live
Wed 5/12 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
Fri 5/14 – Pittsburgh, PA – Club Zoo
Sat 5/15 – Atlantic City, NJ – The Borgata Music Box
Tue 5/18 – New York, NY – Terminal 5

Public Image Ltd. Tour Dates :: Public Image Ltd. News :: Public Image Ltd. Concert Reviews


Sun Eye Candy: John Lydon

HEY, JOHNNY ROTTEN, YOU’RE MIDDLE AGED!

A hearty, happy 54th birthday to John Lydon! As the frontman/shit instigator for the Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd. (PiL) he’s shaken up the musical establishment, left bruises on his contemporaries, hawked up more spit on stages than almost anyone but Joan Jett, and coincidentally made some of the most memorable (and forgettable) rock of the past 40 years. Love him or hate him (or perhaps most appropriately, a swirled mixture of the two), but there’s really no way to NOT react to Lydon, who excels at getting a rise out of even the most jaded amongst us. For example, JamBase’s Associate Editor – a Lydon vet since the early ’80s – once saw the man perform two songs before revealing that he had a banana lodged in his bum, which he then gave to a fan in the front row. Such antics are commonplace and intrinsic to Lydon’s, uh, charm. He’s one of those beasts put here to scatter the herd and incite riots, big and small. So, we say screw the Queen, God save Johnny Rotten!

We begin our natal day salute with some sandpaper PiL fun captured in the early ’80s in Tokyo.

Still a dead sexy spot of rebellion despite being covered by some god awful establishment acts in the ensuing decades, “Anarchy In The UK” will be a musical middle finger held aloft around the globe for as long as young men and women have a need to tell off those in charge.

There’s a great many Public Image Ltd. echoes in the current crop of Brooklyn indie acts rising in fame and popularity. Lydon just got to this sound about three decades before y’all!

Here’s Johnny and PiL’s Keith Levene chatting about their high minded notions for the band. It’s hard to know how much of what Lydon says is pure cheek and how much pure inspiration.

Today’s highly lucrative pop-punk acts have done little to improve on this one.

The sessions for 1986′s Album, where these two cuts are plucked from, featured Bill Laswell, Ginger Baker, Nicky Skopelitis, Tony Williams, Bernie Worrell, Jonas Hellborg, Steve Vai and other revered jam/jazz scene luminaries. It remains one of the great distillations of ’80s Cold War fear and apprehension.

And one for the Queen, and we think they really mean it, man.