It happens more and more frequently, within the music industry, that many bands that have not recorded a studio album for a while tend to buy their time by releasing a live record in the interim, in the aim to keep the fans still interested in said band.
Very often, though, because of a disinterest in investing money and time curing the level of the overall quality of the finished live product, those bands end up sadly delivering a very lacklustre record, risking, as a consequence, also to lose some of their fans along the way.
Thankfully, this is not the case of the latest live album called Alive from the much loved Art Rock band that is Public Image Limited, a record that reflects, rather successfully, the many accolades that John Lydon (vocals), Scott Firth (bass guitar, keyboards), Lu Edmonds (guitars) and the band’s new drummer Mark Roberts have received and still are receiving to date worldwide with their This Is Not The Last Tour that started last year.
Alive, which has been released solely through the collective's website in a limited amount of copies, it's the slightly succinct version of the whole setlist that P.I.L. brought into the first part of the Tour back in 2025, with Lydon and co. bringing on stage some of their biggest hits and few unexpected surprises.
On an average, the setlist brought by P.I.L. on stage every night and made by 17-18 songs, has been trimmed to 13 by the band to make the setlist for Alive, handpicking tracks from what they considered to be their best performances recorded in different locations across the United Kingdom and part of Europe.
Public Image Limited are not new to live albums (they have released a few, throughout their career) and perhaps, some might have been a bit unsure in approaching the collective's new live recording, solely for fear of performance repetitiveness that might have occurred, especially for P.I.L. long time fans.
Well, fear not, because Alive is an album that shows a band in excellent form; although Public Image Limited might have gone through many different iterations in the band’s line-up, through the decades, the current one, which is, exception made for Mark Roberts, the one that has been for the longest together, sounds still like an incredibly organic sonic war machine, with Firth and Edmonds working so well in unison on stage, with Roberts completing the P.I.L.'s Rhythm Section with great efficacy and power.
John Lydon deserves a separate mention; the 70-year-old Punk Hero's vocal delivery, throughout the years, has changed and grown, as one would expect to happen for every respectable singer. The P.I L.'s bandleader singing style has moved to a more Avant-Garde form, morphing so well with the band’s musical development year after year and album after album, as the current Tour and this live recording truthfully show.
Alive is an album that creates impacts, both under a sonic and an interpretative side. On stage, P.I.L. are unstoppable and many will find pleasantly surprising how the slightly different arrangements of songs like Flowers Of Romance, Know Now and Warrior work so well on this current Tour.
Taking aside a couple of little slips of intensity in performance, Alive is a record that displays a phenomenal group of talented musicians that clearly enjoy playing live every night and cherish the idea to be part of an enchanting musical journey like this one, started back in 1978 thanks to the vision of John Lydon.
Bombastic, exquisitely performed and incredibly sonic entertaining, Alive is the perfect mirror of where Public Image Limited are sitting right now, within the music establishment. On top of the bloody world, like Mr. Lydon might as well say.
Alive is out now and it is available to be purchased at Away With Media
