I May Be Wrong, I May Be Right Tour
Tivoli Theatre, Wimborne, Dorset
Wednesday 29 September 2021
19.30
The king is gone
Neil Young, Out of The Blue, Into The Black
But he’s not forgotten
This is the story of
Johnny Rotten
I’ll place this under CONCERTS, though it was really a “literary festival” event. I think that CONCERTS is where you’d expect to find John Lydon. The stage was set up with book displays, two scarlet armchairs and two large signs forbidding photography or recording. It was full, we all had tickets for 20th November 2020, which were honoured for the show.
After the Royal Shakespeare Company and Chichester Festival Theatre, with careful and constant reminders about masks, we were shocked to find no one was wearing masks. Only one of the staff / volunteers was. There was zero attempt to encourage people to wear masks either. I would normally have booked three or four things from the Tivoli programme, but in the circumstances, I won’t be going there again until all this settles. We felt uncomfortable.
The format was a forty minute talk from John, then an interval where people could place questions in a lighted “Ask Johnny” box on stage, followed by the questions being read to him from the guy in the other chair, which he’d answer. I’d asked at the book stand how long it was and was told forty minutes, interval, then about an hour; but the questions ran out after forty minutes so we we were straight to the karaoke encore (I May Be Wrong I May Be Right / Anarchy in the UK) with the whole audience standing and singing. A late question, my favourite, was “In 1977, could you envisage saying in 2021, ‘Good Evening, Wimborne!'” He gave an enigmatic grin. He must have known that ‘Wimborne, Tivoli’ really means ‘Bournemouth-Christchurch – Poole conurbation.” Just as a gig in Beverley really means playing Hull, Lewes includes Brighton, and Eastleigh also means Southampton. He mentioned the PiL tour next year and someone said, ‘Tivoli?’ and another grin. Ironically, he had just mentioned Robert Plant who I saw at the Tivoli two years ago (nice bloke, but DISMAL lyrics according to John).
He has an entourage … interviewer, sound man, book stand, and a man standing just in view in the wings. Protection? It’s a large number for a book tour, very rock star. I thought back to Roger McGuinn and his wife doing a show in Poole, driving the van, and setting the stage with just the two of them. John Lydon also knows how to milk the money – this was a guy who was in The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle. A signed book was £50, and no, we didn’t. Note these ticket prices. We were a humble box office ticket £30, but note the Super VIP package:
On the other hand, I’ve been to many literary festival talks. John Lydon would be in the very best 5% of speakers. He has great charisma, which left me wondering whether he had so much charisma after forty-five years of being famous, or whether he had been famous for forty-five years because he had such charisma.
I won’t spoil the talk. If you’re going, get used to his catch-phrase, fucking cunts. The audience were invited to chant it at the start and we did. Henceforth FCs to save typing. Incidentally, the last time I was at the Tivoli was Roger Chapman and he used the same phrase liberally, though not as often. Anyway, nuns are FCs, priests are FCs, the BBC are FCs, the surviving Sex Pistols are FCs, the producers of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here are FCs, the Disney corporation are FCs, modern football players are FCs and … huge applause … people who attack statues of Winston Churchill are FCs. The thing is, he justifies every one of those epithets and explains why.
I remember well how he was the first to point out the Jimmy Savile (and others) child abuse at the BBC, or the British Buggering Cunts, as he calls them. And yes the BBC establishment knew. Everyone knew. I had heard stories from musician friends long before it all broke. His reward was getting banned from airplay for five or six years as he launched PiL. He talked about this. And yes, he was absolutely right and I’ve long admired him for it. We didn’t post a question, but I’d have liked to hear him on how God Save The Queen failed to get to UK number one in the BBC chart in Jubilee week in 1977, despite selling twice as many copies as Rod Stewart’s #1 … the BBC banned sales from shops owned by record labels … so Virgin … for just for a few weeks. It was a right royal stitch-up.
There was much on his childhood spinal meningitis, and his partner, Nora and Alzheimers. All touching, and also well-put.
He does go for massive targets. In the recent court case, on the Sex Pistols film based on Steve Cook’s autobiography, he took on not only his fellow Pistols, but the mighty Disney Corporation. Most advisors would have told him there are some battles you can’t win. Cease to think of Disney as creatives … the company is run by lawyers. Total FCs. The film had been in planning for three years without anyone telling him or consulting him, he claims.
We only got the forty minutes of questions. His interviewer has nothing to do in the first half except sit next to him in the chair. In the second he asks the questions but he mumbled and let the mic drift away from his mouth at times. If I’d been doing it, I’d have faked the first two questions to get it rolling. He didn’t take questions from the floor. I assume they were genuine questions, as people owned up to their names. Oddities … his current listening is the band Free, with Paul Rodgers.
He is a very long way from PC, or Woke. Don’t expect it. He will probably manage to offend someone or everyone … I was offended by his mimed suggestion of what Polish workers might do to our Christmas turkeys, in Brexit revenge. His comments on footballers as ballet dancers (with gestures) are probably homophobic too. But he’s right on in pointing out that people who lived in his area as kids grew up as Arsenal fans (Tottenham are FCs) but now could not afford to watch them.
There was very little on the Sex Pistols or PiL overall. I’d have liked more though I’m anything but a Sex Pistols fan.
The Sex Pistols v The BBC Official Celebration
We spent the week before the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in Llandudno, staying in a vegetarian guest house. We had not realized it was a vegetarian teetotal guest house, whose owner specialised in colonic irrigation for residents who came for the purpose. Dinner was at 6 p.m. prompt. We went out afterwards and sat in a bar for three hours drinking Silver Jubilee Ale, and examining the ever-growing collection of rude postcards we were acquiring in Llandudno. Then we never managed to creep back in without the proprietor meeting us at the door and insisting we join him for cocoa and philosophic discussions. I thought we were getting heavily into what I thought was punk on the bar sound system, but it was Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers, not The Sex Pistols. Roadrunner is still a favourite. Back at work, younger teachers tried to educate this old hippy in punk, mainly with The Buzzcocks and The Undertones. It seemed to me then, and still does, that the real talent was The Jam and The Clash.
So I still fail to understand why Never Mind The Bollocks , It’s The Sex Pistols keeps placing high in those ‘Best albums of all time’ lists. Also it was forty-four years ago. John Lydon has done a lot since. You can’t reduce a life to a few stellar months.
John Lydon has the gift of likability. He’s funny. He knows he’s a star, and revels in the warmth of the audience feedback. Apparently, he can’t even use the name Johnny Rotten because Malcolm McLaren (a FC) owned it.
Definitely worth seeing.
Obligatory typing error: when writing about LLandudno, “Dinner was at 6 a.m. prompt”.
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It took me a couple of minutes to spot the error there ( 6 a.m.). It’s why I tend to use the 24 hour clock. Mind you, I think breakfast was at 7 a.m. It didn’t matter as we were out walking in North Wales every day and glad of an early start.
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