40th Anniversary Limited Edition

Public Image Ltd - Banging the Door

I wasn't gonna do this one, but when I got into it I saw that I could improve a commonly circulating bootleg and put in a shape actually worth hearing, so here we are.

Normally I wouldn't bother with someone as insanely nutty as John Lydon, who speaks the language of division as fluently as anyone of our lifetimes, but why not? I actually like this band since high school.

I really can't blame dude when interviewers dwell endlessly on 1977 and don't seem to have absorbed the idea that homeboy's been in another band pretty much since then, and that this group makes the Sex Pistols look like The Bay City Rollers once you're past the surface swearing.

Full disclosure: This is probably the single post out of all 940 of them where I'd likely come to blows with the person being covered within five seconds of meeting them, but thankfully this will never happen and he's just a voice on a tape I've gotta balance with the other instruments better than the original twit engineers did.

It amazes me that a Public Image Limited concert was ever even played on the radio like this, but I guess 40 years ago things had not gotten so unadventurous on the airwaves now owned by a whopping 3 corporations.

So yeah, here's Johnny. Former iconic Punk manifesto on legs, devolved into a cranky old establishment figure like all the rest.

Well, at least the ones that still are alive lol. I miss Joe Strummer.

My friend was telling me he once did security for PiL, and Johnny spat and snotted all over the audience for the entire, horrifying hour.

Funny, in this set -- 40 years old today! -- he's acting all irritated and threatening to quit the stage if the punters keep spitting.

So anyway enough about that guy already, what did I do to the sound??? I hear you ask. What could justify this furious invective against the artist, that this concert would be worth upping?

Well, as someone once sang it's all about the bass. And how this tape's never had any audible trace of any since it's circulated, which is forever.

I dunno wtf happened with the Scotland Radio crew the night of this, maybe they had to many bagpipes for breakfast. But Radio Clyde sent this out in 1986 with barely any bottom, and I think of PiL as a Dub group... I mean the original bassist was Jah Wobble for crying out loud. No bass means no show, you know?

Once I cracked it apart with the AI stemtool and saw that yeah, the low end was there and just needed to be unearthed, I got it thumping with some of the gravitas and authority it's never had up to now. Here, see if I overdrove it into Total Bootsy Territory, OK? At least it's lost the wispy, trebly flavorlessness and it has some fucking balls now.

Public Image Ltd

Barrowland

Glasgow, UK

5.14.1986

01 Radio Clyde intro/Kashmir

02 FFF

03 Annalisa

04 Fishing

05 Poptones

06 Pretty Vacant

07 Banging the Door

08 Radio Clyde ID/Flowers of Romance

09 Bags

10 Tie Me to the Length of That

11 Round

12 Home/Radio Clyde outro

Total time: 52:34

John Lydon - vocals

John McGeoch - guitar & vocals

Lu Edmonds - guitar, keyboards & vocals

Allan Dias - bass

Bruce Smith - drums

24/96 transfer of an off-air capture of the original Radio Clyde FM broadcast

converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, de/remuxed for better bass balance, repaired and remastered by EN, May 2026
375 MB FLAC/direct link

I will get back to the jazzier, less expectorant stuff in a few days, and we'll culminate the month with a serious bitches' brew cauldron of crazy, as I attempt to completely crash the internet in honor of the 100th b'day of The Chief. But I thought this 40th anniversary Limited edition was worth some sonic surgery, mad as I was that someone would broadcast this music in such a toothless way. Well, I suppose Anger Is An Energy after all, eh? May the road rise with you.--J.