While the venue was slowly filling up, a man dressed in a
suit with fluorescent yellow stripes and shoulders strode from back stage to front
stage and back again. He studied the part of the balcony that was located above
the stage. That had to be cleared and secured with a ribbon. Throughout the
concert he was looking sternly from a corner of the stage. Was Johnny afraid of beer-throwers and stage divers?
That was the only reference to the Sex Pistols days, as the audience behaved
quite tame today. So this is what they look
like now, the kids with “no future” of 40 years ago: late 50’s,
bald and an old leather jacket that no longer fits over their beer belly.
The rhythm section laid down a very solid foundation, with a
bass so deep it could not be heard, but that did resonate your sternum. If the
rhythm section was reinforced concrete, the guitarist was the diamond drill.
Abrasive, shrill, shrieking, whining, crying - but the guitar never managed to
escape the iron grip of drums and bass. Also John's staccato vocals remained
trapped in the mix and often were just another color in the palette of sounds.
Although his singing was not dominating the music, John was the absolute focus
of the venue: stage center. Only
during a few ultra-short, surprisingly melodic guitar solos the spotlight shifted
to the guitarist.
Slowly we slid into a trance in which the distinction
between the separate songs faded. Were
they new or old? Were they familiar or not? It did not matter, they all were
chained by the rhythm section and the overall sound color. Thus time faded
away, no beginning or end, no past or future, it came to a standstill. A
feeling that you have when you're halfway a twelve month journey around the world,
or, as someone told me, if you've smoked some good hasjies.
We landed back on earth with a long experimental psychedelic
version of Religion. In the middle
part there was just John's distorted voice over a delicate rhythmic touch of
the drummer. At the end a chant: "Turn
up the bass." That happened. The room turned into a vibrating plate,
first shaking the fillings out of your teeth, and then the molars out of your
jaws.
The encore consisted of tight performances of the crowd's favorites
Public Image and Rise (with John's motto "anger
is an energy"). John had pleasantly surprised us with an excellent
band and an excellent show. As parting words he gave us Amsterdam's
my second home, and this way we can
change the system.
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