Public Image Ltd.

Until I stood in line to see Public Image Ltd. in Pontiac, MI, I had never seen the following: father/son punk duos, unironic denim jackets, ‘90s Johnny Rotten memorabilia. Now I can say I have seen large amounts of all these things, these things indicative of a sold-out crowd clamoring for their baggily attired Antichrist.

This kind of multi-generational punk and hipster clusterfuck, all for someone who hasn’t released a new album in thirteen years (and hasn’t released more than one decent song at a time in a quarter-century), is testament to the kind of rock star swagger that John Lydon was supposed to have made obsolete. Just as Nietzsche’s hyperbolic dismissal of philosophy only ended up changing the conversation, Lydon’s controlled rejection of rock star excess merely made him a new kind of rock star. On stage he’s still unrivaled, with the codified staunchness of morally aggressive successors (whether religious or on Dischord Records) lacking in his coiled surprise.

The new band bearing the PiL logo after eighteen years is a mix of late-period holdovers and a former Spice Girl session drummer, but for all the ingloriousness of that resume, their translations of classic, Levene/Lydon compositions are strong stuff. Lydon may not have the lean anger of his Pistols years, but now he’s wielding a different elder-statesman force accrued through time. After an opener-less, hour-long wait, the band just appeared, Lydon gargling cognac and staring down the audience. His sarcastic, barely twitching dance moves (including the Von Trier-ish-ly named “Idiot”) worked as the hypnotic center for an ever more bass-heavy, hearing-threatening mix. “On the eighth day, God created bass,” Lydon observed during a pummeling, lengthy rendition of the anti-you-know-what screed “Religion” (from their 1978 debut) and by the end of the show the PA system was audibly aching from the strain on the low end.

Song-wise, the odd thing about this sort of greatest-hits post-punk tour is the funhouse mirror of stardom it provides. The hits are only, in some cases, hits—the encore threesome of “Public Image,” “Rise,” and “Open Up,” for example, which impressively cover three decades. Usually, though, the best received songs were PIL’s early deep-cut chants, pop-minded in the most unconventional way. The first half of the set was heavily reliant on Metal Box (1979) and the albums directly thereafter, whose increasing entombment in stiff eighties production (and session musicians) was wiped clean by the back-to-basics accompaniment. Opener “This Is Not A Love Song” from This Is What You Want…This Is What You Get (1984) lost some of it’s poppy dance-punk oomph under a blanket of power chords, but the body-horror of the same album’s “Tie Me To The Length Of That” emerged as strong as anything from their first two albums. “Flowers of Romance,” the only representative of the 1981 album of the same name, rejected the detuned saxophone of the original in favor of a natty guitar solo, extending the brief song into a surprisingly strong jam, proving the power of Martin Atkins’ original, tom-heavy beats.

Nietzsche burnt out before he could fade away, but Lydon remains, always bringing up the question of why he should haul out the back catalog from time to time (other than the filthy lucre). The answer seems to be that a large part of his appeal lies in his role of pure interpreter (the sneer, the howl, the icy control), which justifies a reunion tour for reasons beyond mere nostalgia. Even during a late show detour through the pop-rock flaccidity of 9 (1989) and Psycho’s Path (1997), the magnetism of his unpredictable disdain (rage against a stage-blocking bouncer) and flashes of abiding audience respect managed to buoy the band along. With it the cock-rock grandstanding of the latter album’s “Psychopath” almost emerged into a post-punk “My Way,” less literal than Sid’s cover of the Sinatra tune, but with the same snarling deconstruction of pop anthemics, valedictory yet somehow still primordially rebellious. More than any residual goodwill from his 1977 big bang, it’s this full metal jacket persona that keeps generations of alt-kids coming back, and which will always justify another Lydon show. Even in Pontiac, MI.