If you are a fan of Public Image, Ltd., you may be aware that my personal favorite album of theirs, The Flowers Of Romance, just turned 45 years old this month! How 45 years went by so fast is an alarming mystery, but suffice it to say that album was one of a kind, and has aged beautifully. It also has one of the best drum sounds ever recorded. To celebrate this milestone, Martin Atkins and Chris Connelly assembled a stellar lineup of musicians to play this album live. The show was to be held at Reggie’s, which is a wonderful club in the South Loop, the same venue that held Martin’s celebration of Killing Joke last year. The band was comprised of Martin Atkins, Chris Connelly, Robert Byrne (of Denied Remarks and Insane War Tomatoes fame!), Lelia Royale, Orville Kline, Alicia Gaines, and Alan Lake.
The night before this big Flowers Of Romance event, there was a full dress rehearsal at Martin’s Museum Of Post Punk and Industrial Music (PPIM for short). The private event was only open to those who purchased the Ultra VIP package for the Reggie’s show and there was a very limited amount available as it was very close quarters having a crowd and a full band packed in the main room of the museum. The place filled up quickly with the most diehard of fans, and everyone was very excited.
The band spent some time finishing setting up and fine tuning everything, while Martin was also tending to all the guests and showing off various parts of the museum. If you haven’t been to this museum, it is really an amazing place filled with decades of musical history, artifacts, and countless hours of stories. You could spend hours in the place and still not soak it all in, every square inch has something to see. It’s an amazing document and time capsule.
When everything was set, Martin spoke at length about the album and its history before the band played. Once he took he seat at the drums, the band was ready to go. For this rehearsal, they decided to warm up with a PiL song not on the album before playing the album, so they opened with “1981”. The band was tightly packed in their allotted space with little wiggle room. The band sounded great and they have a really good sound system in that museum! Chris Connelly really does a great job singing PiL songs, as was first made evident when Revolting Cocks covered “Public Image” on the Beers Steers And Queers tour with Chris singing it.
From there the band played the entire Flowers Of Romance album, in order, and it sounded fantastic. They had been rehearsing quite a bit leading up to this, so by this night they were really locked in on these songs. Seeing Martin play “Four Enclosed Walls” was something magical as that song’s drumming is the basis of the entire track. When they got through the album, they even played the outtake that never got released, “Vampire”! Why this song never made it to any record, is a complete mystery as it was awesome!
If that wasn’t enough, the band finished things up with “The Order Of Death”, “Swan Lake”, and “Public Image”! It was a really great finish. After they were done, they stuck around to socialize with the crowd as they packed up their gear and people finished their refreshments. It was really a special, intimate performance and it made the people in attendance even more excited for the show the next day.
