Latest news with #AnarchyintheUK
Times
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Kneecap: have Ireland's rap provocateurs finally gone too far?
Not since the Sex Pistols delivered a volley of swear words on live television in 1976 has a band generated so much moral outrage for what it says rather than what it sings. The Pistols became targets of cancel culture decades before the term was coined as venue after venue refused to host their Anarchy in the UK tour. Now the Irish language rap trio Kneecap is facing a similar backlash after their 'F*** Israel' graphics at the Coachella festival in California led to a trawl of social media that unearthed videos of a band member shouting 'Up Hamas', telling fans to 'kill your local MP' and brandishing a Hezbollah flag. A gig at the Eden Project in Cornwall has been cancelled, as
The Independent
30-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Sex Pistols star once confessed to stealing from David Bowie: ‘He thought it was funny'
A member of the Sex Pistols has revealed they once stole equipment from David Bowie during his last Ziggy Stardust show in 1973. Three years before the punk rock band rose to fame with the release of their debut single 'Anarchy in the UK', guitarist Steve Jones snuck into the Hammersmith Odeon to steal supplies from the pop star. Jones, 69, who rocked up to the venue in a stolen minivan at 2AM, managed to drive off with Bowie's band's cymbals, the bass player's amplifier and a microphone with Bowie's lipstick on it. Speaking to The Guardian, Jones explained: 'They played two nights, and after the first night they left all the gear up, because they were playing there the next night. I knew the Hammersmith Odeon like the back of my hand, I used to bunk in there all the time. I was like the Phantom of Hammersmith Odeon.' He continued: 'It was about two in the morning. I stole a little minivan and I got in. There was no one there, other than a guy sitting on the fourth or fifth row, asleep – he was snoring. 'It was dead silent. I tiptoed across the stage, and I nicked some cymbals, the bass player's [amplifier] head – a Sunn amp it was – and some microphones. I got Bowie's microphone with his lipstick on it!' Jones later confessed the crime to Bowie who 'thought it was funny' – because the microphones weren't actually his. It was drummer Mick Woodmansey and bass player Trevor Bolder who truly suffered a blow. 'I actually did make amends with Woody,' Jones revealed. 'He came on my radio show a few years back, and I thought I'd tell him live.' The guitarist asked Woodmansey what he could do to make it up to him for stealing his cymbals, to which the drummer asked for 'a couple of hundred bucks'. 'I think I gave him $300 (£231),' Jones said. 'So, he was well happy.' Elsewhere in the interview, Jones revealed the most chaotic thing that ever happened on stage with the Sex Pistols was during a gig they played at a club in Milwaukee with a 'ridiculously high stage' in 1996. 'It was about 20 foot,' he recalled. 'Some guy walked on the stage, I don't know how he got through John [Lydon]'s security, Rambo, saw him and came running across the stage. 'He grabbed the guy, the guy hit John, and John fell off the stage, head first,' he continued. 'And I thought, that's the end of that. But he got up and carried on!' It comes after the 2025 iteration of the Sex Pistols — Jones, Paul Cook, Glen Matlock and Frank Carter — announced the band's first North America tour in two decades earlier this month. This autumn, the legendary punk band will embark on their first tour of North America without Lydon, at the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, Texas — the site of a particularly hostile show for the band when it first toured the U.S. in 1978, where the band had 'pigs' hooves and bottles' thrown at them by cowboys. Jones, Cook, Matlock and Carter revealed they didn't reach out to Lydon to see if he wanted to participate in the reunion tour, which he has been vocally dismissive of in prior interviews. 'The last thing he wants to do is have anything to do with us right now,' Jones said, referencing a lawsuit the singer filed against the band over the use of Sex Pistols music in their TV series, Pistol. 'We wish him the best,' he added.
The Independent
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
John Lydon slams new Sex Pistols revival which doesn't feature him as ‘karaoke'
John Lydon has revealed he was 'p***ed off' to discover the Sex Pistols were set to tour without him last year. The frontman, 69, rose to fame with the punk band under the stage name 'Johnny Rotten' in the mid-Seventies with songs such as 'God Save the Queen' and 'Anarchy in the UK'. Tensions came to a head between Lydon and former bandmates Steve Jones, Glen Matlock and Paul Cook after he went to court in an unsuccessful attempt to stop their music being used in Danny Boyle's Pistols series in 2021. By 2024, Jones, Matlock and Cook had announced a number of London reunion tour dates for which Lydon had been replaced as lead vocalist by singer and tattoo artist Frank Carter. Speaking to The i paper, Lydon admitted: 'When I first heard that the Sex Pistols were touring this year without me it pissed me off. It annoyed me.' He explained: 'I just thought, 'they're absolutely going to kill all that was good with the Pistols by eliminating the point and the purpose of it all'. 'They're trying to trivialise the whole show to get away with karaoke but in the long term I think you'll see who has the value and who doesn't,' he added. 'I've never sold my soul to make a dollar. It's the Catholic in me – that guilt I don't want to trip.' In recent years Lydon has adopted right-wing political stances including throwing his weight behind Brexit, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage. Last year, he claimed division in the UK was caused by immigration. Elsewhere in the interview with The i, Lydon – who has lived in Malibu for the past 40 years – said he'll never return to Britain. 'You can't go back. It's changed,' he claimed. 'Once you leave a place, you have this romantic vision, but it's locked into a time 30 or 40 years ago but it's never going to be the same. 'Things change, even friendships. They shapeshift. Looking back can only make you uncomfortable.' When asked what he thinks of Donald Trump once again becoming President of the United States, the former punk rocker replied: 'Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.' 'I won't be fooled again,' he added. 'I had high hopes for Obama but then I found out he was nothing but an officious bureaucrat altering every single institution into a political entity before taking into account common sense and life experiences. 'But, if you're going to repair a broken business, you might as well get a businessman to do it.' Following Trump's presidential election victory in 2016, Lydon said: 'This is a joy to behold for me. Dare I say, [he could be] a possible friend.'
The Independent
16-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
John Lydon admits he was furious at the Sex Pistols for touring without him
has revealed he was 'p***ed off' to discover the Sex Pistols were set to tour without him last year. The frontman, 69, rose to fame with the punk band under the stage name 'Johnny Rotten' in the mid-Seventies with songs such as 'God Save the Queen' and 'Anarchy in the UK'. Tensions came to a head between Lydon and former bandmates Steve Jones, Glen Matlock and Paul Cook after he went to court in an unsuccessful attempt to stop their music being used in Danny Boyle's Pistols series in 2021. By 2024, Jones, Matlock and Cook had announced a number of London reunion tour dates for which Lydon had been replaced as lead vocalist by singer and tattoo artist Frank Carter. Speaking to The i paper, Lydon admitted: 'When I first heard that the Sex Pistols were touring this year without me it pissed me off. It annoyed me.' He explained: 'I just thought, 'they're absolutely going to kill all that was good with the Pistols by eliminating the point and the purpose of it all'. 'They're trying to trivialise the whole show to get away with karaoke but in the long term I think you'll see who has the value and who doesn't,' he added. 'I've never sold my soul to make a dollar. It's the Catholic in me – that guilt I don't want to trip.' In recent years Lydon has adopted right-wing political stances including throwing his weight behind Brexit, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage. Last year, he claimed division in the UK was caused by immigration. Elsewhere in the interview with The i, Lydon – who has lived in Malibu for the past 40 years – said he'll never return to Britain. 'You can't go back. It's changed,' he claimed. 'Once you leave a place, you have this romantic vision, but it's locked into a time 30 or 40 years ago but it's never going to be the same. 'Things change, even friendships. They shapeshift. Looking back can only make you uncomfortable.' When asked what he thinks of Donald Trump once again becoming President of the United States, the former punk rocker replied: 'Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.' 'I won't be fooled again,' he added. 'I had high hopes for Obama but then I found out he was nothing but an officious bureaucrat altering every single institution into a political entity before taking into account common sense and life experiences. 'But, if you're going to repair a broken business, you might as well get a businessman to do it.' Following Trump's presidential election victory in 2024, Lydon said: 'This is a joy to behold for me. Dare I say, [he could be] a possible friend.'
