Hamish Champ: God Save The Queen (We mean it, maaaan)

Another weekend, another trip down punk rock's memory lane. I'll admit I was rather nervous at the prospect of seeing the Sex Pistols on Saturday night.

Unlike the Stranglers, who've kept going all these years, the Pistols only reformed recently in order to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of their one and only album, 'Never Mind The Bollocks'. And pick up a few quid in the process, no doubt. True, they'd reformed once before, for the 'Filthy Lucre' tour of a few years ago, but this was to be the 'Big One'.

Yet surely this outing, including five sold-out nights in Brixton, would be a farce; a travesty; a pantomime of epic proportions. Four ageing punks grinding out songs that were more than 30 years old? Isn't that what they wanted to sweep away all those years ago; the dinosaurs of the musical world?

Thankfully, Messrs Lydon, Jones, Cook and Matlock were anything but going the motions on Saturday night. Johnny may have piled on the pounds in the last three decades but he remains one of the best frontmen of a band I've ever seen, while Jones, Cook and Matlock sounded on top form. And boy, was it LOUD.

OK, so there was little of the resonance 'God Save The Queen' had when it was originally released at the height of M'am's silver jubilee. And 'Holidays In The Sun', with its references to the "going over the Berlin wall", sounded a tad dated.

But songs like 'No Feelings', 'Bodies' and of course the magnificent 'Pretty Vacant' were awesome back then, and were bloody awesome on Saturday night. Time shall not corrupt, and all that.

Now I grant you, Lydon was never one to shy away from getting up people's noses, as numerous old biddies and council leaders in the provinces 30 years ago would attest. And even today he might well irritate - even offend - some people with his snarling, viperous arrogance.

As a performer he may well come across as a village idiot with an attitude problem. But listening to the man's supposed rants in between songs, it quickly becomes clear that far from being just some 51 year-old gobby fat git, he is actually quite a sharp observer of life.

When he introduced the band's version of the Stooges' 'No Fun' he remarked that England itself had become a lot less fun in recent years: "You can't smoke anymore, you can't drink as much as you want to. This country's turning into Belgiummmmmmmm!" And then, with a maniacal cry of "Johnny wants you all to have FUN!!!!", he took a sizeable slug from a bottle of brandy and exhorted us to make the most of it while we still could.

So we did. Just like it was 1977 again…