We all got the word about the PiL reunion a few months back, but the band — John Lydon with former bandmates Lu Edmonds and Bruce Smith plus new guy Scott Firth — hit the stage for the first time last night at Birmingham O2, the first of five UK shows this month. In interviews Lydon’s said — really — that those Country Life butter advertisements he did funded the reunion prior to the check for last night’s show. As far as I can tell, though, he doesn’t plug the product from the stage. Speaking of which, we did find some video from the evening. The guys sound good.

As a preamble, the person who posted the video at YouTube notes:

Classic gig, amazing 2 hour 15 min set taking in a lot of ‘Metal box’ (nothing off the last album & ‘happy’ and only 3 tracks from ’9′, rest of the set all early + some solo stuff….a lot of tracks they never used to do, a real fans set!) – John looked and sounded great (as i remember pil) all other band member fantastic also….if your thinking of going to the other gigs in the tour, do you wont be disapointed. Much much better then the last pistols gigs as far as im concerned. This really worked and was really fresh due to them re-vamping a few old songs for the better (‘warrior’, & ‘this is not a love song’ spring to mind)

For now:

Lydon’s talking shit off-stage too. For instance, calling Oasis a Sex Pistols/Rotten rip in NME:

I’m still hearing records coming out that mimic our style, but they don’t give us credit … I’m a bit annoyed, because I’ve never done anything in my life to be like somebody else. Oasis annoy me, you know? The voice annoys me. He could’ve come up with his own thing.

You don’t have Oasis to push around anymore, Johnny. The upcoming PiL shows:

12/16 – Leeds, UK @ Leeds 02 Academy
12/18 – Glasgow, UK @ Glasgow 02 Academy
12/19 – Manchester, UK @ Manchester Academy
12/21 – London, UK @ Brixton 02 Academy
12/22 – London, UK @ Electric Ballroom
12/23 – London, UK @ Electric Ballroom

We’ll include more video as it surfaces.

[Photo: Tony Woolliscroft/WireImage.com]