<%@LANGUAGE="JAVASCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> God Save The Sex Pistols - Electric Picnic Festival, Ireland, 31st August 2008: Review
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ELECTRIC PICNIC FESTIVAL, IRELAND, REVIEWED
31st August 2008
God Save The Sex Pistols Review by Johnboy

Festivals - you either love 'em or hate 'em. Bar a few inconveniences (i.e camping and the toilets), I love them. The Electric Picnic in Ireland is my favourite of the lot. I've been to the last three, and bought my ticket to this year's in November, before the line-up had even been announced. What an absolute bonus when the line-up was announced in March, to discover that my favourite band of all time, the mighty Sex Pistols, had been booked to play.

So this year for me it was all about the Pistols. However, honourable mentions need to go to The Breeders, Elbow, Grace Jones, Franz Ferdinand, Hayseed Dixie (check out their Hillybilly version of 'Holidays In The Sun'!) and The Gossip for great sets.

About 10 o'clock I made my way right to the front, and right on cue at 10.30 'When Irish Eyes Are Smiling' played over the PA. The band came on and launched into the 'loungecore' version of Pretty Vacant, swiftly followed by the original.

The Pistols were on fine form - loud, tight, funny, confrontational (see below),and magnificent. The setlist was more or less the same as for the previous dates on the tour, encoring with Bodies and Anarchy In The UK, with Silver Machine and Roadrunner as the second encore. What struck me was the camaraderie between the band - loads of smiles and winks, and they were stood so close to each other for most of the set that you could probably have thrown a blanket over all four of them!

Unfortunately, a couple of dickheads were throwing beer cans and water bottles on stage. At first John laughed it off, saying they can't be Irish as they had wasted some beer! A glass bottle was then thrown from an area of the crowd about ten feet to my right. Steve spotted this straight away, and at the end of the song, all the band downed their instruments and went to the edge of the stage to confront the culprit. John went into a rant, calling the thrower a cowardly dickhead. Then something spontaneous and brilliant happened - all the crowd who were near the thrower surrounded him and started chanting 'Dickhead! Dickhead!' at him. They then picked him up, and moved him over everyone's head towards the front barrier, and literally threw him over the barrier. Classic!

Anyway, this incident seemed to fire the boys up even more, and the rest of the show was truly awesome. I've seen them at Brixton, Manchester and Birmingham over the past few months, but this gig honestly topped the lot.

There were some touching moments at the end of the gig - Steve walked straight over to Glen and put his arm around him as they took the applause. John and Paul also stood together as John bowed down to the crowd. It really looked as if they didn't want to leave the stage!

Anyway, this was an awesome end to a brilliant festival. If the band don't play together anymore, it will be great to remember them like this. However, they are on fire at the moment, so it would be a real shame if this is the last we will see of the best band on the planet.

Review and pictures by Johnboy

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Text & pictures ©Johnboy 2008. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission.
God Save The Sex Pistols ©2008 Phil Singleton / www.sex-pistols.net.

God Save the Sex Pistols

 

God Save The Sex Pistols ©Phil Singleton / www.sex-pistols.net