Here’s a little bit of my past, a drawing of an old concert ticket I still have, the Sex Pistols comeback show at Finsbury Park in June 1996. It’s pretty worn out – most of that wear and tear was from being in my pocket while pogoing around with 30,000 other sweaty punk rockers on a very hot Sunday evening. I went with my uncle Billy, and my Hungarian friend Andrea (we lost her during Skunk Anansie, one of the many supporting acts). I had been a Sex Pistols fan since I was about 13, when Billy first played me some Pistols records at his flat, but never thought I’d ever get to see them – I was not even two in 1978 when they split up. When the ‘Filthy Lucre’ comeback reunion tour in ’96 (with Glen Matlock back on bass) was announced, we had to go, and the Finsbury Park gig, being in Johnny Rotten’s home area (he used to go to the same school as my dad actually, but much later), was going to be great: support from loads of old (and new) punk and similar acts, most exciting of all for me being Buzzcocks, another group I’d always wanted to see (and never saw again; RIP Pete Shelley, by the way!) I had been at the Hellfire Club on Oxford Street the night before, practicing my pogo, Iggy Pop was on stage right before the Pistols, shirt ripped off, all abs and muscles and dancing (I couldn’t relate) and then it was time for the Sex Pistols and it was loud and crazy and too much fun, going right into the night. We were at the front, crushed against the barrier, barely able to move. I remember there was a woman next to me cheering and dancing, and behind her this lecherous bloke made many gross moves on her, and didn’t stop even when people called him out; I’m happy to say I elbowed him in the face as I was pogoing to ‘Seventeen’ and he sodded off. It was a crazy night. I went over the top of the crowd eventually, the crush at the front being a bit much, and then jumped up and down for the rest of the night in the middle of the Finsbury Park crowd. Rotten gave a massive fun performance, I remember him announcing “Fat, Forty and Back!” (I was Skinny and Twenty). They rattled off all the classics (they don’t actually have that many songs so it was basically their whole catalogue), in front of an audience that was probably larger than the total number of people they had ever played in front of, combined. Well, their largest gig ever. Not exactly how I grew up imagining Pistols gigs – in some sticky-floored ballroom jumping up and down on broken glass, or down at the 100 Club with cracked ribs and sweat and smoke (though there were those things), and not exactly Manchester Free Trade Hall, but I daresay a few bands were formed that night too. Andrea must have gotten home on her own, and Billy and I found his car on the other side of Finsbury Park and sped back to Burnt Oak. Wicked, we just saw the Pistols, no big deal. Not going to be going on about this for the next twenty years or so. It’s especially more fun telling people about that day now that I live in America, where people are more impressed, “oh yeah I saw Buzzcocks supporting the Pistols,” like it was in 1976 or something. It does go down as one of those things I’m glad I went to, and glad I went with Billy, and I’ll remember it all my life.