What better way to round off a week of seeing acts whose work I was unfamiliar with than seeing a band whose work has resounded down 30 years?

I am not the biggest card-carrying member of The Sex Pistols fan club but back in the day I bought the singles and album while following their meteoric rise and tawdry demise through the pages of the then-obligatory NME. It was with a growing nervousness that the day of accompany Owen to the 2nd of their latest reunion gigs came closer. Would they walk through it basking in the knowledge of immediate sell-out shows and an acquiescent audience? Would the audience be as drunk and lacking in spacial awareness as has been my experience at some 70s band gigs?

All I can say is Never Mind That Bollocks - they were fantastic!

Owen is getting to know his way round the Brixton Academy so it didn't take long to get from main door to seats about 6 rows back on the aisle in the circle with a good vantage point of the stage and also the purple lights raking the auditorium. The nerves started to give way to genuine excitement as the moment of them appearing got nearer... like, DAMN I was going to be seeing the bloody Sex Pistols!!

The lights went down and the darkened auditorium was suddenly lit from the two large scenery doors being opened in the back of the stage and in a blaze of white light four figures walking downstage... and there they were, a swaggering theatrical entrance fully befitting their legendary status - and despite the half-arsed attempts of the security to get everyone in the circle to remain seated it wasn't long before we were standing singing and cheering them on.

Was there ever a greater front man - outside of Moz - than our Johnny Rotten Lydon? Panto came early this year as he worked the crowd better than any number of old-pro dames or villains, eternally disappointed in us but also saying that seeing us all there made him so happy. His amazing presence meant I couldn't take my eyes off him, a genuine 100% legend.

What surprised me was how great they sounded - Paul Cook kept his drumming fierce and propelled making the songs everyone knew backwards as exciting to hear as the first time while Glen Matlock and Steve Jones kept up a solid wall of guitar noise - even if it took a while to work out which was which! What also surprised me was their virtual anonymity, none of them spoke or were even referred to by John. I guess he has enough personality for them all!

Playing all of NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS and various b-sides and live favourites, they left some great sonic memories none more so than those four classic singles - PRETTY VACANT opened the show and after a while Johnny conducted us in a sing-song to "Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside" before the guitar slides and fierce drumroll hurtled us into HOLIDAYS IN THE SUN - that drum roll was one of the most exciting things EVER!

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN closed the main set against a backdrop of stamps bearing the classic single sleeve - oh the joy of singing NOOOO FUUTURE again and again at the close left me grinning from ear to ear - one of them was for you Steve where e'er you be. The two encores included great versions of EMI and BODIES... and of course, ANARCHY IN THE UK. Possibly the greatest British rock song ever it sounded as vibrant and thrillingly alive in their hands as when they first recorded it.

They were quite simply magnificent and how drab and neutered the British music scene of today looks in comparison.