When the most notorious, punk band ever reunited for a 20th anniversary tour in 1996, they cheekily dubbed the event The Filthy Lucre Tour. Seven years later they're at it again. With just one real studio album to their credit, the original pre-Sid Vicious line-up, with Glen Matlock on bass, relied heavily on their most infamous anthems. To round things off, they hauled out The Great Rock and Roll Swindle ditty "Belsen Was a Gas," re-worked to become "Baghdad Was a Gas," and plundered the Stooges' "No Fun." Through it all, rake-thin Johnny Rotten swaggered arrogantly around the stage reading from his cheat sheets and taunting the crowd with sneering self-deprecation and loathing. But after five songs of being showered with gob, he stopped the show and stormed off stage. "I survived your SARS," he said, referring to his spring appearance at a music conference in Toronto. "I don't want your AIDS." He eventually came back after a tense five minutes and finished the set, and most left with the satisfaction of having seen what they came to see: old punks clinging to relevance through nostalgia. We expected nothing more and certainly didn't get it.
Sex Pistols
Molson Canadian Amphitheatre, Toronto ON - August 25, 2003
BY Stuart GreenPublished Oct 1, 2003