Saturday Live

Plenty of people have been critical of John Lydon over the last few years/ decades and with good reason- the Sex Pistols reformations, the butter adverts, the support for Trump and Brexit, the professional contrarian. I read his autobiography a few years ago, Anger Is An Energy, and in the end found it exhausting, the constant need to settle scores and self- aggrandisement. A softer side of him was revealed recently following the death of his wife Nora and his role as her carer during the final part of her life. His recent PiL albums have shown that although the music and songs are variable, he still cares enough to want to keep doing it and play with it, to keep moving. 

Back in 1980 John was still at the forefront, the post- Pistols warrior making one of the period's best albums- Metal Box, a groundbreaking fusion of dub, post- punk, avant garde guitar music, sound experiments and Lydon's then still extraordinary vocals and lyrics. For some reason, at the end of a US tour, on 17th May 1980 PiL found themselves at the TV programme American Bandstand, a US musical institution hosted by the clean cut Dick Clark. Bands on American Bandstand mimed in front of a live audience. PiL had been asked to play two songs- Careering and Poptones were the two they chose- but to cut the running time down to fit in the ten minute segment in between ad breaks. Lydon was apparently genuinely bemused by the request. What followed shows that despite some of the lowspots of later years Lydon was once a singular, exhilerating, wilful and genuinely anarchic character, a one off. As the clip begins the three musicians, Levene, Atkins and Wobble start to 'play' Poptones. Lydon sits by the side of stage staring with that look on his face. He gets up, makes a few moves and immediately after crossing the stage breaks the performer/ audience barrier, half miming the words, half mad Pied Piper, walking into the crowd to whoops and cheers. 

Then he brings a girl from the crowd to the stage and goes back, encouraging more of the audience to join the band, the cameras following him. The stage area is soon filed with dancing audience members, Lydon occasionally returning to the band, prowling and glaring, barely contained glee at upsetting the norms. Between songs Clark tries to suggest the audience go back but Lydon says no and then career into careering, the entire studio now awash with dancers. Lydon disappears to the back of the studio, the band swap instruments, the cameras can't keep up. When the cameras do find him, John barely bothers to mime, often just grinning at the mayhem he has created. Considering not a note is played live it is one of the best music performances ever screened on TV.