Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

To tour with PIL, you have to be good. No two ways about it, you have to be better than good you have to be of the calibre that the audience will take to immediately and have the presence of a Greek titan holding aloft the captured remains of an enemy at war. In Pauline Black and The Selector, both requirements were met with astonishing ease and for the crowd at the 02 Academy, to have this type of pedigree as support to PIL, to John Lydon and the fabulous set of musicians would have been like having dinner at Claridges and being allowed to have the desert, after dinner mints and coffee first.

There was no doubting the thoroughbred affair on stage as perhaps arguably one of the two finest bands to ever come out of Coventry stormed through a set that seemed as relevant in 2013 as it did 35 years ago when the explosion of the genre started to really become a force.

In just under an hour the floor bounced as if a herd of elephants were told to shake off cramp by jumping around to some of the finest musicianship around and fronted by a woman whose demeanour and enjoyment at watching an audience receive so much pleasure was like witnessing the Greek goddess Jove squirm with excited glee at the prospect of giving Tiresias a hard time.

There were many fine moments throughout the whole set, the combination of guitar, drums and saxophone blending well with both vocalists, however the band seemed to take on extra resonance as they performed tracks such as Prince Among Men, Secret Love, Missing Words, a superb rendition of Avengers in which was as cool and stylish as the fantastic hat that Ms. Black wore throughout and of course the electrifying On My Radio.

If you are going to open for PIL, you need to be good, you need to be on your game throughout your time on stage…The Selector fulfilled every dream, every pore and sinew cracked with pleasure and in the end it comes down to one thing…class is always permanent.

Ian D. Hall