Public Image Limited at Shepherd’s Bush Empire on 21 October 2013 (Imelda Michalczyk)

Shepherd’s Bush Empire is packed out with fans young and old on this Monday night as Public Image Limited take to the stage.

Opening with ‘Deeper Water’, the band stampede through a set that includes the classic ‘This Is Not A Love Song’ (thrown in early), ‘Warrior’ and ‘The Body’.

John Lydon is captivating yet comfortable in his role as frontman, singing from a lectern as though almost conducting the entire event as though both band and audience were his orchestra. Between songs, there’s the expected arch humour. At one point he sneers out at the crowd and yells “You still here? We went home hours ago. This is a tape!”.

The songs are surging, sometimes lengthy and usually hypnotic. Quite how this standard rock and roll set up of singer, guitarist, bassist and drummer can manage to exude such thickly layered, unusual, swirling beasts of songs seems beyond logic.

Public Image Limited at Shepherd’s Bush Empire on 21 October 2013 (Imelda Michalczyk)

Lydon’s familiar jerky stage moves and poses serve as the only reminder of his Sex Pistols days, highlighting how far he’s travelled from Rotten to PiL pioneer over the decades. He was recently presented with the BMI icon award for songwriting. Tonight seems justification, were it ever needed.

Public Image Limited at Shepherd’s Bush Empire on 21 October 2013 (Imelda Michalczyk)

Closing the set with last year’s ‘One Drop’, the band is quickly brought back for an encore including the first hit ‘Public Image’ and the monumental ‘Rise’, which brings the audience to their sing-a-long knees. Anger really is an energy…

Public Image Limited at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London on 21 October 2013
Review by Imelda Michalczyk on 21 October 2013, London.

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