I saw the Sex Pistols in concert this week. Well, three of them.
Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Glen Matlock were there, with Frank Carter taking Johnny Rotten’s place behind the microphone.
And they were good. That may have been the problem.
I saw them at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, which is almost the perfect place to see a punk band. It holds only about 1,200 people. You’re close to the stage. It’s loud. It’s crowded. There aren’t many places for a band to hide.
And the band was tight.
Carter brought plenty of energy. The crowd knew the songs. Everyone seemed genuinely happy to be there.
Even the Sex Pistols seemed happy to be there
There was something wonderfully strange about watching members of the band that once terrified polite British society standing onstage smiling and seemingly enjoying themselves.
It was practically proper.
They played the songs everyone came to hear. Holidays in the Sun. Pretty Vacant. God Save the Queen. Anarchy in the U.K.
In fact, they played nearly all of their landmark album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.
They almost have to.
The original Sex Pistols burned brightly and disappeared so quickly that they left behind only one proper studio album. There isn’t a deep catalog to explore or decades of different eras to draw from. If you’re going to play a full Sex Pistols concert nearly fifty years later, Never Mind the Bollocks is the show.
They did skip one song: Submission.
As it happens, that’s probably my least favorite song on the album, so even the omission worked out rather nicely for me.
Which, now that I think about it, may be further evidence that the Sex Pistols have become far too accommodating.
But somewhere during the show, I realized something was missing. The anger is gone.
Frank Carter is a terrific frontman. He threw himself into the songs and worked the crowd.
But he wanted us with him.
The Sex Pistols were a different kind of band
Johnny Rotten never seemed particularly concerned whether anyone was with him.
When Rotten sang those songs nearly fifty years ago, he didn’t sound like a performer playing angry music. He sounded angry. There was contempt in his voice. The Sex Pistols weren’t trying to create a fun evening for everyone.
That was part of what made them dangerous.
Tuesday night was different.
The crowd was having a great time. Carter was having a great time. Jones, Cook and Matlock seemed happy to be playing these songs together again.
And I was having a great time too.
I’m glad I went.
I got to stand in a small club and watch three actual Sex Pistols play some of the most important songs in punk history.
But I couldn’t escape one thought.
The young Sex Pistols would probably have been disgusted
They would have called all of us twats, or something worse. Maybe that’s what happens to rebellion if it survives long enough.
The dangerous songs become classics. The offensive T-shirts become collectibles. The kids who frightened their parents become grandparents themselves.
And eventually anarchy becomes nostalgia.
Maybe there’s no avoiding it.
You can preserve the songs and the sound. You can even put most of the band back on the stage.
But you can’t preserve the moment that made the music dangerous.
Maybe that moment belongs to the young because they don’t know what comes next.
When you’re young, most of your life is still in front of you. You haven’t built much yet, which also means you don’t have much to lose. The future is unknown, and there’s a certain freedom in that.
Eventually you build a life. A career. A family. A reputation. Responsibilities. There are things worth protecting. You learn that actions have consequences because you’ve lived long enough to experience some of them.
Maybe that’s part of growing older.
You become a little more careful.
A little more responsible.
A little more proper.
Even if you were once a Sex Pistol.
I am Doug Keating, and this is my letter to my sons.