Public Image Ltd: Alive 
CD | 2LP |3LP
Public Image Ltd have released a limited edition, self-produced live album, Alive. It captures the highlights from the This Is Not The Last Tour, that roamed with purpose across the UK and Europe last summer. It is exclusively available online here as a CD, Double LP or Triple LP. Numbers are limited, so don’t sleep on it if you want a copy. Sean Millard yells “Take My Money!”, drops the needle and relives some of the best live moments from 2025. Multiple times over.
2025 was a big year for Public Image Limited and me. I love them enough to have their logo tattooed on my forearm. Hard. Core. I got to see them twice last year. At Forever Now, in Milton Keynes, and at Epic Studios in Norwich, my hometown. It was a high-exposure boon that formed some of the highest lights of last year’s gigs for me.
And then there was John Lydon’s speaking tour, which I caught, wonderfully, in North Norfolk’s premium trad. seaside resort, Hunstanton, later in the year. That was particularly golden. I got to meet the man himself at a Meet and Greet (moderately deflating) and sing a line of Anarchy with him (incredibly inflating) as part of the Greatest Hits Karaoke session at the end of the show. All in all, 2025 was, very much, a Love Song for PiL and I.
So imagine my surprise and delight when they announced a limited live release from that tour. Available on either two or three records (mine is just the two), containing numerous performances from the 2025 tour that includes their night in Norwich. Look Mum! I’m on the telly/record! For the first time ever!
Previously, I only had one claim-to-recorded-crowd-fame. My local yokel bellow is heard screaming for “Head On” on a live Loop bootleg from Reading Festival in 1989. That was a wonderful weekend.
So; I’m chuffed to be sitting here, playing the records and reliving the immaculate experience of last summer. I didn’t get to see PiL around the time of the first three fantastic LPs. I was too young. In fact, I didn’t get to see them live until 1992, at a different Reading Festival. They hadn’t played anywhere near me since 1983, when I was but a mere slip of a 13-year-old. A year before I fell in love with them, anyway.
Since then, I catch them live every chance I get, which, in recent years, has ventured well into double figures. I’m never disappointed, but their current lineup and the power of their current shows make the contemporary PiL live experience better than ever. In most ways, at least. Nostalgic envy refuses to let me make that statement without a slight caveat.
One show that forms part of the track listing to Alive was played on May 31st 2025. It was perhaps the best set I’d seen them play. It was absolutely the best sound I’d heard capture them. Epic is the old Sale Of The Century studio in Norwich, which feels fitting somehow, in a slightly amusing and tangential way. Live. From Norwich. It’s the GIG of the week.
The three songs represented from that particular show, annoyingly (on a purely personal level) comprise of two of the less impactful songs from the recorded set. The first is Know How, a stomping deep cut from 2015’s moderate, but not amazing, What The World Needs Now. The other lesser track (for me) is (many other fan’s) favourite, World Destruction. That was the solo dancey collaboration with Afrika Bambaata/Timezone, from 1986. It has never enthralled me. I’m in the minority. And that’s okay. Its energy works better in a live set than it does as a single for me, but still…
What really DOES thrill me, though, is Norwich being represented by one other song, too. Public Image itself, the crowning piece of any PiL live performance. Well. It’s between that, (This Is Not A) Love Song and Poptones, anyway. Maybe.
Glasgow can claim those latter two songs as theirs on Alive. With Dublin putting on a good show too, with Rise and, if it was anything like the version I witnessed, a mind-blowing rendition of Flowers of Romance. I was swept away when they played it in Norwich. Absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately, though, you have to get the triple LP or CD to hear it in this case. Shame.
Elsewhere, Poland’s Wroclaw exhibits the perfect old school medley of Annalisa / Attack / Chant and also Warrior, a single from 1989 that didn’t particularly grab me at the time, but that has matured with age and become a cornerstone live piece that never fails to enthrall.
Portsmouth fairs slightly worse than Norwich, with the appalling Shoom, another one from What The World Needs Now… and the rather more engaging Corporate, from the same album, that starts to feel over-represented. It’s my only criticism of the LP. Otherwise, the set has a career-spanning feel to it, which could have been cemented further with a couple of different choices from other LPs. I’d have loved Flowers to be in the standard track list instead of Shoom. It would have been great too to have had some representation from 1987’s Happy?, too. Seattle is a great single that gets overlooked too easily these days.
But that’s a small quibble, really, because even the ‘lesser’ tracks are great fun – to be clear, there’s nothing skippable on here at all, barring Shoom. And that’s just personal preference. Many fans adore it, judging by the sweary fist pumping it instigates from the crowd, anyway.
Two other cities are represented on the album and both, admirably. Belfast kicks off proceedings with a great and energetic rendition of Home. It kick-starts the set perfectly. But Newcastle wins this particular duel with the always-astonishing-and-this-time-especially Death Disco. Its cacophonous ballet still sounding accessibly avant garde and mad as a hatter’s topper 46 (!) years after its birth.
Overall, Alive is a great record of PiL as they are right now, which is, in many ways, at the top of their game. Every fan will have the favourite songs, of course, but that aside, it’s a wonderful record of a great set. I hope you witnessed it first-hand. If you didn’t, shame on you and all your kin. But don’t panic – this really is the next best thing.
Note: At the time of writing, there are no streamable assets available for Alive. So sate your need with this offficial PiL phone recording of Rise at Forever Now, in Milton Keynes, last June:
As for the specifics, it feels that, as Alive is very much an album ALL about favourites, I’m going to selfishly focus on mine:
This Is Not A Love Song (Glasgow) lands at the end of Side One. What a wonderful ditty. It was my introduction to the band, when they were chart-bound with it in 1984, so has a nostalgic heft for me. Number 5 in the UK charts! Amazing. Number 3 in the Irish. Incredible. I was immediately allured by its repetition and the minimalism of its graphic design.
I remember clearly singing it at the top of my lungs in woodwork, as I hopefully slathered some ill-fitting dovetail joints in glue. And the version on Alive could almost be definitive. I love what they do with it live these days; they lean into the popping bass and four-to-the-floor disco of the song and create a wildly sprawling and improvisational take on it. Perhaps it’s because otherwise they’d be bored stiff by it. I read somewhere that Lydon hates it. Or at least, he did once upon a time. I could be wrong (I could be right), but it would explain its ever-evolving majesty.
For what it’s worth, John, if I’m right, you’re wrong. You wrote something totally amazing that day. It’s the breakdowns in the live version that make it. They are dominated by Scott Firth’s bass and Lydon’s rambling vocal lines. It ends up being disco-prog. Which I suppose is kind of Can-like, in a way. And thus the circle is complete. The antelopes have eaten the grass. I feel a (love) song coming on.
Far from remaining the miserable, antagonising and snidey pup of yesteryear, Lydon has embraced his aged role as entertainer and national treasure, with all his inciting rants intact. This instigates predictable cries of “Sell-Out!” and “Bodies!” in equal measure from the “faithful”. I find that unwillingness to evolve and to treat PiL and Lydon as a nostalgia act more than a contemporary and relevant presence, irritating.
It surely bugs the fuck out of John, but the ability to monetise it in the ultimate display of Cash From Chaos must lessen its aggravation, somewhat. Nowadays, he revels in the interactions with the audience and despite his continuing crippling stage-fright, he’s learned to embrace the adrenaline. He uses it to fuel delighted showmanship, and he’s clearly in his element once his feet hit the stage. His performance throughout the song – and the album – is second to none. His voice has found a lower pitch with age, which ends up fitting the music really well. Despite my love for all eras, I’m happy to admit it is less grating across multiple listens now than it once might have been.
Poptones (Glasgow) begins Side Two with its incomparable dubby-and-nagging bass line. As soon as the first notes hit, the audience applauds. No surprises that it’s so popular. A total classic. Lu Edmonds does a sterling interpretation of Keith Levene’s original awkward and shimmering lead lines. God, I love the song.
Forgetting for a moment the local pride and nostalgia that might inform enthusiasm for other tunes on here, it seems indisputable to me that Poptones is the best track of the album. The performance is a stand-out. The playing really is bob-on, by all involved. The band does it justice but develops it too, making it very much their own. What a classy team. It’s also worth noting here that, despite the age of these tracks, not one of them – but especially those from the band’s original run – sound old. They are all still unique and undatable. Rather like me, come to think about it.
Death Disco (Newcastle) rolls straight in on Poptone’s coat tails, complete with dancey beat and cod-Swan Lake riff. And Lu’s guitar playing is notable again. He winds through the song in his own way, hitting a delicate balance between accuracy and evolution. It brings a new flavour top an old song and therefore he’s therefore the star of this performance. There’s a rewarding squelchy breakdown when John recites directly his experience on his mother’s deathbed. That bit never fails to strike a chord. It makes the juxtaposition between the upbeat music and sombre lyricism even more dynamic.
The band excels across both discs in one area in particular: interpretation. Not one of these songs is knocked out, over-familiar and included just as a crowd-pleaser. I mean – the crowd is pleased – of course – it’s fucking delighted – but not because all the hits are represented in their traditional form. I genuinely think that the band is incapable of dialing it in nowadays. You can feel their (angry) energy and their commitment to their own versions of the songs. Each one literally takes on a life of its own; a new vision. Unique to the moment. Just as it should be.
Shoom wraps up side two. I hate it. Sweary for the sake of it and it just doesn’t land well. It’s the one moment on the album (and the set in general) that I deem unnecessary. It tries too hard. The music is ace, but the lyrics and their delivery is horrible. It takes much more than shouting “Fucking Bollocks” to impress these days, I’m afraid.
Public Image (Norwich) leads the tirade across the fourth and final side of the two disc vinyl edition.
Of course it gets a mention. If only for my own unmissable crowd contribution. As it stands, though, it is as astonishing now as it ever was, regardless of my own inimitable presence. The song emphasises how perfectly creative that first lineup was. I might prefer Martin Atkins as a drummer, but there’s no debating the strength of Jim Walker’s original motorik contributions. He kept it simple, which gave space for Wobble’s wobbling and Levene’s shards of glassy guitar to really shine.
It’s also a great showcase for the strength of the current lineup. The pro musicianship has never been better in PiL. Lu Edmonds is such a masterful guitarist – of any genre – and Norwich’s own Scott Firth’s bass playing has real depth and strength. It’s a notably powerful, thumping live sound, and that’s reflected on the recording, too. This tour was the first outing for Mark Roberts behind the drum kit, and he does a great, confident job. At odds with Walker’s original simplicity, his playing is full of flourish and finesse.
The end result is that the instrumentation is just as captivating as Lydon himself. Public Image is a perfect pop song and the perfect wonky pop band delivers it with a directness and completeness that gives it even more strength. Lydon, in this case, might even be the weakest link; his warbles go energetically off key when everyone else is in the pocket. It’s no bad thing; it adds to the vibe, but all the same, it’s interesting to hear a brilliant “backing” band outplay the centre of attention. That’s not fair. They’re much more than that, but you know what I mean.
Rise (Dublin) follows directly on from Public Image, taking on an entirely new shape compared to its original 7” form. Elongated breakdowns and audience participation elements make it an engaging listen. It now often serves as the final encore, ringing in your ears as you wander out of the venue to the car park long after the final notes have rung themselves out.
“What is Anger?!?” Lydon bellows.
“WHAT IS ANGER?!” This time, more demanding.
“An Energy!” The crowd joyfully returns.
“What is it? I can’t hear you!” It’s fucking brilliant music hall, is what it is.
“ANGER IS AN ENERGY! ANGER IS AN ENERGY!”
And so it goes, until we all crash beautifully together, chanting that timeless seven syllable hymn to the end. Bloody marvelous.
The record itself ends with Annalisa / Attack / Chant, a medley that reprises some ace early album tracks. And as we reach the end of the record, a wave of utter satisfaction comes over me.
I’m not traditionally a fan of live albums. Press The Eject…, Hanx!, Weld, If You Want Blood. No Sleep To Hammersmith. Maybe Alive and Dangerous. That’s it. But you know what? PiL’s Alive might be good enough to add its name to that rare and mighty list. A list that I’ve not added anything to for more than 30 years.
That’s an accolade that’s difficult to beat, coming from me. You can go on about not believing it’s butter, expanding waistlines, dicey politics and cringey egos as much as you like, but you know what? John Lydon is fucking 70 and he’s delivering everything he’s got with more power, enthusiasm and fun than he’s ever done. As divisive now as he’s ever been. But I say fuck all the ancillary sniping and punker-than-though bullshit. The man’s responsible for multiple musical movements, from Punk, through Post Punk, to Avant Garde Post whatevers. Just listen to the music. Revel in the stories. Embrace the fact that you were alive at the same time as him. Imagine if you weren’t. How dull it would be.
The world wouldn’t be the same without John Lydon. Long may he reign. And that goes for Lu, Scott and Mark too. They’re growing old disgracefully and taking us with them. And fuck me, I love them for it. God Save PiL. And long live their spirit. It means more these days than it ever has.
May the road rise with you…
~
All words by Sean Millard. Read more at *Expletive Deleted
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