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“It’s a psychobilly freakout,” Dallas rockabilly preacher Horton Heat sang, earnestly enough — the only problem being that, after 50 years, his brand of rockabilly isn’t all that freaky or psychotic anymore. Backed by drums and a standup bass, the reverential reverend scratched out rootsy guitar lines that were properly twitchy and nervous, if largely derivative, despite occasional lovely embellishments like the spectral plucking that adorned the intro and outro of “Galaxie 500.” Boston’s Dropkick Murphys represented a different brand of traditionalism, cranking up Woody Guthrie’s ever-timely “Gonna Be a Blackout Tonight” with a pulverizing punk revisionism à la the Real McKenzies. Laced with pipes, bagpipes and mandolin, the Murphys’ melodies tend to come off like “Auld Lang Syne” as sung by “yo-ho, yo-ho”–bellowing pirates. Sounding and even looking like former Blood on the Saddle singer Annette Zilinskas, guest vocalist Stephanie Dougherty, decked out as a winsomely wholesome bobby-soxer, provided sweetening on “The Dirty Glass” and a rowdy remake of “If I Were a Carpenter” that underscored the connection between cowpunk and Irish folk.
The Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten announced humbly,
“The queen is dead — all hail the king,” referring of course to himself, in front of a crowd that included onetime dead-queen-documenter Morrissey. Despite ushers’ visible concern over the slam-dancing in the aisles, Rotten egged on the revelers with class-warfare broadsides. (“This is the Greek, and all the millionaires in the hills are listening. Let’s make some noise!”) Introducing the set, Rotten declared, “Peace and love and all that crap. I think you know who we are,” before guitarist Steve Jones launched into the foreboding riff of the abortion-gone-wrong spectacle “Bodies,” still bloody and sinister after all these years. Rotten substituted “Baghdad” for “Belsen” on Sid Vicious’ black-humored “Belsen Was a Gas,” and merrily sang a verse of the Doors’ “Hello, I Love You” during a propulsive “Submission.” “Seventeen” dragged a bit, but the Pistols have always been slower than other punks, creating a mood of seedy danger through swaggering, deliberately delivered power chords instead of fast tempos. “You lot need clues for everything,” cheerleader Rotten chided the kids, stirring up applause for the closing encore of “Anarchy in the U.K.” and “Problems,” which climaxed with Jones’ clever, extended stutter-step strumming. Rotten, naturally, got the last word: “We are not worthy, but you make f***ing sure that you are.”
Never Mind the Pistols: It's MOZ
