Lust For Life Tour - Glen Matlock - Clem Burke - Katie Puckrik - Kevin Armstrong - Raph PH - London 2024

Credit: Far Out / Raph Pour-Hashemi

Lust for Life tour review: a supergroup serving sweet punk reminiscence

Tue 12 March 2024 16:51, UK

Being an ageing punk is a peculiar predicament. It was a movement so heavily aligned with youth culture that when it is saddled with grey, you wonder whether it still holds the same level of vitality. Lust for Life are a supergroup looking to prove otherwise. The collective is made up of Katie Puckrik on lead vocals, Blondie drummer Clem Burke behind the kit, one-time Sex Pistol bassist Glen Matlock on the four-string, with David Bowie’s old buddy Kevin Armstrong alongside Luis Correia and Heaven 17’s Florence Sabeva on keys.

That’s one hell of a line-up, which makes it perhaps no surprise that their set is no mere reprisal of punk. With Puckrik perfectly channelling the carnal energy of Iggy Pop into a 21st-century setting, despite playing the bulk of Lust for Life, this isn’t simply a homage but a roaring statement that the power of punk has never waned. In fact, it hasn’t even matured beyond its swaggering sexuality; it has just got better at playing its instruments.

This latest tour was the group’s second outing in the UK. During that time, it was notable that the venues have increased in size. While from the outside looking in, that might be an indictment of our growing obsession with nostalgia, but amongst the melee of energy, that point almost seems moot, and you left with nothing other than an appreciation of a great band doing something innovative with great tunes.

However, even if you are there for homage, then that is delivered, too. With special guests such as Kevin’s sister Janet Armstrong, who sang backing vocals on David Bowie’s ‘Absolute Beginners’ back in the day, you begin to realise that part of the appeal is actually the fact that the band elucidate the huge importance of the artists they cover—rightfully honouring the renaissance of punk.

And they’re the perfect people to do it. Matlock, for instance, sets a riotous encore in motion with lead vocals on ‘Pretty Vacant’, ramming home the point that you’re witnessing one of the most significant songs of the modern era. The same can be said for the explosive finale, ‘Search and Destroy’ by the Stooges, which rattles the room right back to the 1970s and the crash and thunder of a dawning revolution from which we’re all still reeling.

Lust for Life are true to the album that they pay tribute to: a simultaneous blast of fuck-it energy and the cognisant reflection that saying fuck-it can actually be of primal importance. Both are readily apparent as the stellar band pair the power of the past with sound that is decidedly crisp, new and silver-fox cool.