Firstly,  I thought my days of gettin up at 3am were well behind me when I gave up being a Milkman, but a 6am flight from Bristol to Helsinki made sure the end reward far outweighed a few hours sleep sacrifice.....

Secondly, because I deliberately got an early flight just in case of delays, it meant that I was in the town centre by 2pm , so I thought a few steady beers were the order of the day, but about 7 or 8 pints of Stella later, admittedly I was feelin' a bit worse for wear, almost to my cost ..... I walked up to the venue at about 7'ish and when I got to the door the security woman stopped me and asked me if I was OK? So I answered YES, and she moved me to one side and asked me to look at her, she pointed to her eyes, as I was lookin' she was shakin' her head, "Oh fuck" I was thinkin'; come all this way and miss the gig cuz a few sherberts in the afternoon got me refused entry. I looked round and pointed and then said that I had walked really quickly up the hill that was behind the venue. It was a pretty shit excuse and I dunno why but it worked; she looked at me and said "Oh go on in then" ..... Phhheewww ..... So having learned my lesson, when I got inside the venue I went to the bar and had a couple more pints! ! ! .......

Never bothered with the support, had a couple more beers instead and walked around the venue, went into the arena bit at about 9'ish and about 10mins later the lights went down and Vera came on. Not many of the locals seemed up for singing it so I shouted it out for 'em!!! ...... Then the band strolled on, and after a few Hellos and Greetings from Johnny, it's straight into Pretty Vacant.

The set is the same as it has been for the tour and the quality songs just keep comin'. The crowd seemed a bit quiet to start with 'till John said "Come on you lot; they were a lot louder in Oulu last night;" that did the trick, from then on it was a lot livelier.

I must have been so deep in concentration on the gig, that the first thing I really noticed was there wasn't any, "Oh I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside" before Holidays, so I put that right, with a few funny looks from the Locals!!! ...... Then after Johnny had finished spoutin' his Allah routine it was into Belsen, the opening sound for this from Jonesy's guitar was fkn immense, and then Submission. For me these two songs were the best of the night .

In between each song Johnny announces which one is next, and at somepoint someone gobs at the stage and gets it both barrels from John who points in that direction and says, "You stupid little tosser, if you wanna spit then why don't you fuck off home and stop spoiling it for everybody else, you two bob wanker." Then after EMI they leave for about 5 minutes ...... When they come back on Johnny says, "Look I'm smokin' a fag in a banned area, I'm fuckin hard!!"

Then into Bodies, simply superb it's my favourite Pistols song, not that I dislike any of the others but that was the first one I ever saw 'em play live when they started with it at Finsbury Park ..... Then during Anarchy we have a sing-a-long, which Jonesy takes centre stage for and is conducting everyone by flaying his arms side to side through the air, then off again.

Not much of a response to Silver Machine, and then into Roadrunner. Towards the end of this one, John does an amusing Two Ronnies like mimic; he points to his right and says, "From Glen" and there's cheers, then points to his left "From Steve" and there's cheers, then he looks round and says "From Paul" and there's cheers and then he says "And you all know me, I'm John", louder cheers. Then he points to someone near the front and says, "Except for that dozy cunt over there who tried to spit at me earlier, the rest of you have been fuckin' superb. Thanks fer havin' us." They finished off the song and were gone. The lights came back on, and I stood there for a few minutes just grinning, wotta fuckin superb gig .

Personally, I just can't get enough of seein' the band play live, for me this was my Sex Pistols coming of age gig as it was the 21st time I have seen 'em play ......... Here's Hopefully To Many More! ! ! ! 

Set list: Pretty Vacant / Seventeen / No Feelings / New York / Did You No Wrong / Liar / Holidays In The Sun / Belsen Was A Gas / Submission / (I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone / No Fun / Problems / God Save The Queen / EMI. Encore 1: Bodies / Anarchy In The UK. Encore 2: Silver Machine / Roadrunner.