John Lydon's Public Image Ltd. walks the line between post-punk nostalgia and new music

"Still there?" John Lydon snarled, between songs, from the stage of a Toronto club.

The former Sex Pistol is in the midst of a North American tour promoting his band Public Image Ltd's new album What the World Needs Now.

The question seemed partly a coy plea for more noisy adoration from the crowd, which was mostly old enough to have followed his career since Lydon, then known as Johnny Rotten, famously swore on live British TV back in 1976 and thrust punk into mainstream consciousness with the subtlety of a slam dance.

But he also seemed to be testing his long-in-the-tooth fans' willingness to listen to such brand new songs as Double Trouble and Bettie Page alongside old favourites like Religion, Rise, This Is Not a Love Song and the self-titled anthem Public Image. After all, it's been 37 years since he first formed PiL.

Despite a plumper physique and having to peer through reading glasses at a binder of lyrics to help him remember the words, 59-year-old Lydon was in good form.  

He was energetic, spitting vitriol as he manically waved his arms around and alternated glaring and grinning at the audience.

Lydon's well-paced mix of old and new tunes underscored the fine line some bands must walk. When adored for earlier material and hitting the road with a new album to promote, a group could potentially strain the patience of its aging fanbase.

More post-punk bands have chosen to reunite of late, realizing that their once youthful followers are now old enough to have paid off their mortgages and can afford concert tickets and $40 t-shirts.

For their part, many fans seem willing to recapture the pleasure they felt when they first heard these bands and are apparently overcoming any trepidation about wrecking their youthful memories. That's always a fear when seeing a bunch of aging musicians jumping around onstage and risking throwing out a hip.

Striking the right balance

Some bands turn their backs on the songs that made them famous, ignoring the reality that the vast majority of ticket holders are there because – while they will tolerate a smattering of new songs – they want to hear the old material.

British singer-songwriter Paul Weller, recently on tour for his new album Saturns Pattern, stuck mostly to new tracks when he played in Toronto in June. He paid little attention to his earlier solo albums and made only one nod to the songs that made him famous when he led The Jam in the late 70s and early 80s. 

Weller's sole acknowledgement to that era was his final encore: a rousing version of Town Called Malice that brought the crowd to a frenzy. It felt like he'd finally succumbed to the pressure and tossed the song in at the end as a reward for sticking with him all those years.

A friend flew to another city a few months ago thrilled to catch a rare concert by Graham Parker & the Rumour. He was dismayed when the artist largely snubbed his early catalogue in favour of songs from his new album, Mystery Glue.

In contrast, when I recently caught the Psychedelic Furs, reunited around brothers Richard and Tim Butler, the group was content to play old hits like Pretty in Pink and Love My Way. Since they haven't released an album of new material since 1991, there wasn't anything to get in the way of fans happily wallowing in nostalgia.

At Sunday's concert in Toronto, Lydon – to his credit – walked the line between back catalogue and new material. It's the savvy he's shown since his Sex Pistols days, as the master showman who wailed the protest anthem God Save the Queen while the band sailed the Thames on a barge during the Queen's Silver Jubilee year.  

Near the end of his Toronto show, after inviting the audience to join a sing-along, he quipped: "Thank you my friends. We're all in this together."

And when it comes to pairing old and new in just the right proportions, that rang true.

Public Image Ltd appears on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night.