Public Image Ltd / This Is Not The Last Tour / Roxian Theatre / Pittsburgh / 9.29.2026
John Lydon is still John Lydon.
Ornery as ever, but also completely engaged with the crowd. There was bourbon, or what I believe was bourbon, being sipped throughout the night, plenty of interaction, and an impressive amount of nose-blowing. At one point, after one particularly aggressive round of it, Lydon simply said, “It’s hell to get old.” Fair enough, John.
Ten songs? That’s it?
When I first saw the set list and counted only 10 songs, I was a little disappointed. Then the songs started stretching out…and stretching out. Nearly everything got the extended treatment, with enough jamming and detours to turn those 10 songs into a full hour and a half. So, yeah, never judge the length of a PiL set by the number of songs on the paper.
The band was ridiculously tight.
There was a lot of improvisation and jamming happening throughout the night, and there were moments when I genuinely wasn’t sure if we had moved into another song or simply wandered into another section of the same one. Somehow, the band always knew exactly where it was going. That looseness never translated into sloppiness.
Thirteen years later, the crowd still knows how to move.
It had been roughly 13 years since I’d last seen Public Image Ltd., and I was probably one of the younger people in the room which wasn’t much of a surprise. What did surprise me was just how much dancing was happening. The vibe at a PiL show is surprisingly upbeat, and seeing that kind of energy from a crowd that has been listening to this music for decades was pretty great.
This is not the last tour?
That’s what the tour is labeled as. I absolutely hope that’s correct! It’s been a long time since they’ve hit some of these markets that are on this tour. So if you have a show coming up on this tour, make sure you go because despite the name of the tour, I wouldn’t wanna risk missing the legend of John Lydon.
