Early PiL is just jaw-dropping stuff. As the man said, "Words cannot express."

4:12 jah wobbles little step dance is the coolest shit ever..and his bass playing is out of this world

Jah Wobble's sense of rhythm is impeccable.

PiL has always been decades ahead of it's time. This performance in 1980 is AT LEAST fifty years before it's time, maybe more.

This was a brilliant performance! Keith Levene's unusual talent with synth sound effects and bizarre guitar work. Jah Wobble's underrated bass work. It all still sounds fresh in 2020. P.I.L. was ahead of their time! I'm sorry the band went through so many tribulations. The original band line up was my favorite.

I was 12 years old & had to ask permission to stay up late to watch this (no video recorder/you tube in those days ) & my brother got 2 microphones from his cassette deck to record it but we had to keep silent. I can honestly tell watching Poptones & Careering was a genuine blast into the future. You might read some smug comments but considering there was at the time quite a good music scene (the 2 tone movement was in full swing) this WAS AHEAD OF IT'S TIME!!!!! It's like the jet engine to the

back when this came out and I was in art school, (risd), I force fed myself this because I knew it was dense and difficult. when "flowers of romance" came out, I choked that down too. still to this day early pil was the most challenging music ever made and 40 years later, still ahead of the times. I love it.

4:06 - Using a guitar to play the synth

keith levine, founding member of the clash, and PIL, major influence on 80s gutair sound including the Edge from U2, the police, and many other 80s new wave bands .

Nearly 35 years old and it's still as terrifying as ever! I can hear so many bands in this - Massive Attack, Death in Vegas, Primal Scream, The Chemical Brothers...

2:13 synth+guitar. nice.

best track ever written. thanks wobble, levine & lydon

Also, Keith Levene was the bollocks. Look at him just tapping that synthesizer like a G!

there is "post punk" and then there is PIL, a genre on its own.

...I had a bad opinion of PIL, but after seeing this, I changed my mind. It 's an incredible sound track, alienating, murderous, fabulous!

I hope someone could take this vid and put more volume on the bass, one of the greatest things in this song

Glad I found this. I stayed in on a wet December night to see PiL on Whistle Test, rather than go and see 999 in Great Yarmouth. My view then is as now - this was a brilliant performance and I remember at the time thinking I had witnessed something special. Ive still got Metal Box in the original movie can case - put it this way, it won't go anywhere near the car boot. Careering and "No Birds Do Sing" are the strongest pieces on there.

Astonishing great!! Anne Nightingale was almost knocked off her feet being in the same studio as this..

Yes, because it's a live version. Keith is adding extra synth here, brilliant! Metal Box is one of the greatest records made imo :)

*That is the most powerful performance I've ever seen since Tiny Tim*

This is just electric, real... savage and listen to that baseline... powerful... look at the drummer closely when the camera shows him, unbelievable... Ye can here but when you see him, something else... class and that is the most powerful performance I've seen on whistle test! 🎵🎶🎸🎶🎵🎸🎶🎵

Now here's a more satisfying crunch than Twix could ever give. The original PiL is noise perfection. "Metal Box" is so invested with Rotten's personal pain at the time, the honesty about which just makes it that much more impactive. Wicked-bad!!

the pride of history the same as murder

Great experimental post punk Pioneer Band in action with a wack up energetic strident noise 🎹 effects sound 👂👂 attacks!

I remember listening to this at the age of 12, It blew my feckin mind back then... Still does :-)

paradoxically one of the most OVERused terms in describing musicians and bands is the word UNDERrated. But that's just what PiL has always been: One the most underrated bands in existence since there were just so many people who could never get over the fact that John Lydon had left "Johnny Rotten" behind as soon as the Sex Pistols disbanded.

The point is this song is awesome and it brings back a great nite of memories to me.

Too bad that this lineup of Pil didn’t last longer. Keith Levine‘s atmospheric guitar & sensitizers and Johnny wobbles bass Is quite the show

Best song ever written about the Northern Ireland Troubles:A face is raining/Across the border/The pride of history/The same as murder/The steady hand as planned/Behind the reasoning/No claim for property/Both sides of the river/There is bacteria/No one should be there/Blown into breeze/Scatter concrete/The jagged metal bad life/There must be meaning/Behind the moaning/Spreading tales/Like coffin nails/I need to hide/Trigger machinery/Across the border/Armoured machinery mangled

greetings from london. we feel for you greece but it's a process and we're all gonna go through it sooner or later. it's not what is done to us that we will be judged on but what we do to others. keep your moral chin up

Indeed, great performancing Careering. Know it as long as it exists, but heard it in a mega-musicstore (Fame). Couldn't stop my feet tapping away on this one. Had to had this dvd, with this performance on it, even while the other bands and music was shite. Jah Wobble and Levene with Lydon. Yeah...!!

Brilliant! One of the best live bands I've ever seen.

Been listening to this since it was out...still can't get over it..it's massive all ways round...giant stuff!!

one of the best pil songs dope

love the metal box era pil.afther keith levene and jah wobble left,my interrest for the band disapeared.

Just love this tune what with poptones can't get much better.

my fav pil track..many thanks!!

wow what memories! i got on stage with PIL, at the Palatium in NYC, and sang with them to this song, and pop tones. what a great nite that was. wow i was 16 and had my 15 minutes of fame, lol.

Too Much...Too Soon... Still Incredible.

I remember this performance. Thanks for posting. This band were so much more exciting and interesting than the Sex Pistols. Like their New York No Wave contemporaries of the time they hated the punk rock cliches and wanted to explore dangerous and innovative music which used, noise, dissonance, funk and dub. Mind blowing. No wonder the dumb LA punks hated it, cocooned in their safe punk rock world!

I really like this music,it's raw and real

Thank you for posting, that is fucking incredible. My one regret is that I was too young too see PiL live at this juncture in their career. 'Careering' is probably the greatest song from 'Metal Box', which must surely be THE greatest album from the immediate post punk period. Spine chillingly brilliant.

los maestros del bajo poeroso.... gusto ko sa magandang puwit... lao style

This video and the metal box album are still way ahead of their time. Fantastic stuff

People don't realise just how good Keith was

i think this is better than the album version, those manic keyboard sounds are amazin, never heard anything like it, this sounds like dubstep nearly 30 years early

Really remarkable.

jah wobble on da base

That is the most powerful performance I have seen on Whistle Test - a British TV show debuting up and coming bands 'The Old Grey Whistle Test'

the hardest man to be in the world is yourself

I saw Sasha & Digweed about 2001 and at 5 am they worked this bassline for about 1/2 an hour...proving once again how crazily advant this was in 1979.

Truely awesome. thanks for this.

Bollocks was Levene a spent force as a guitarist, Never heard anybody play guitar or synth like that before or ever since. I remember this on OGWT pick of the year 1980. Fantastic!!!

Metal box is in my top 10 , this track is awesome

PIL where ahead of there time back then. a cracking performance. the original PIL should reform.

Sounds even more ground breaking and impressive today, than it did in 1980. Unique, totally innovative, and forward looking music, of the highest caliber. Kathy B is right---this is AT LEAST 50 years ahead of it's time, perhaps even 75.

I bought Replicas and Pleasure Principle in 1979 because it was right and proper. I also bought the album that spawned this because the 6th formers at school wore punk hairstyles and recommended it to me. Thank christ for that.

Best version.

What a sound, I love that Old Grey Whistle Test allowed such a broadcast. Very anti-wave and before their time completely.

This is so amazing, any band/performance artist should watch this. Yeah from earlier comments (and other PIL clips) , they actually looked like they cared about this show.

Esta cancion y este video son maravillosos! La droga de antes pegaba mejor que ahora... Aguante PIL!!!!!!!!!!!!

brilliant brilliant brilliant

The best version of this track is on the "Paris in the spring" album. This vid is quality!

this is such an awesome tune .. why .. I have no idea it just does it for me

I just listened to the album `This is What you Want` and it became my favourite PiL album. I figured something was wrong so came here. I'm better now.

hellva performance sounds so tight discordance works in well with the chaos of the moment havent seen a better clip

I never listen to this song but always felt it like a kind of black blood streaming in my veins !

Really good stuff!

Didn't realize PiL formed so early on. Thanks for the lesson. Great stuff!!! I'm off to the CD store for a purchase.

Yeah I agree. From the time he joined the Pistols to the time Keith Levine left PIL, Lydon was one of the most important and influential figures in British music. Since then it's been Johnny and his various backing bands.

AMAZING!

I love this live!!

I think John's lyric's are so poetically ambiguous they stand the test of time. It certainly plays well to Northern Ireland's troubles at the time. But can just as easily be applied to any conflict as well, past present and future. As well, they can exude so many other levels of turmoil - personally, nationally, global. It's unfair to pigeonhole the song to say it's 'just this'. It's really so much more for everyone. John's a brillant poet that begs for mass interpretations. :)

Jah Wobble is one of the sickest bass guitarist ever.

Metal Box is still easily one of the best albums ever made, and this is possibly the best track off it. and what a performance!

This is PIL in full glory. Wow, this is epic!

Primal,original, great stuff.

Cheers Keith.

Jah Wobble Great Bassist !!!

That is the most powerful performance I have seen on (then the clip is cut off) In otherwords this is a kick ass performance she just saw in front of her eyes!

they are SOO ON IT in this recording. There is still hope for good music out there, just don't give up yet!

@idealtypical exactly so: Lydon gives it attitude, Levene gives it fucked up noise, Wobble gives it drive - terrific stuff

the reason it's so amazing is that it's a group of people with the will and ability to express themselves. That's always been rare, and especially nowadays when every band just tries to sound like someone else.

Little better than the album version actually, that's one epileptic synthesizer alright, it begins to have a mind of it's own thru this song.

PIL early releases were great!!!!! they merged dub, kraut and great performance!!!

this was my first liver performance with them...next was Paris Au Printemps... bestest Martin

The drummer is Martin Atkins for this performance.

People just didn't " get " PiL back then, but they're learning now.

maybe post-industrial, cos Throbbing gristle & cabaret voltaire were already in 1974

I discovered Public Image right before I turned 16.

I remember them doing this on OGWT and found it galvanising; then they fucked it. 20 years later, it still moves me. Nobody came near to that stuff for years!

I like music when it moves me. I'm not interested in theoretical knoledge or musicality, it's about emotions. So for me, this is fantastic.

THANK YOU!

From the album "Second Edition." One of the finest, mind blowing-est, and yes, entertaining albums ever recorded. The bass playing alone is worth the price of admission. And am I the only one who thought M. Jackson stole the riff for "Billy Jean" from the album's first cut, "Albatross"?

This was the song that made me think to myself 'Whoa, these guys aren't wanking anymore. They're onto something HUGE!' It was unlike anything I've heard before, and I grew up on Hot Butter, Throbbing Gristle, Flying Lizards, Devo, etc. But this song, to me is 'intelligence sublime'. John's most personal and introspective lyrics ever! Kudos Galgo! :)

You gotta keep in mind that Jah has never touched a bass before PIL. Unbelievable. Certainly on of my favourite bassplayers of all time.

its ahead of its time when you think of the amount of bands that wrote songs of this nature back then, opposed to the ones that do now. Bands like MGMT, Foster the People and loads of other bands wouldnt be around today, or certainly wouldnt sound like they do without a band like this that came far before them.

sick sound!!

I think it's right to say this is ahead of it's time. If you place it within the context of the time it came out it most certainly is. If you played this for somebody, I can bet money they wouldn't think it was 1979 or 1980 that this came out. To me that's what makes music ahead of it's time. When you can't classify or recognize it to a certain decade or era. When people think of music from the late 70's and early 80's they think "Disco"....not the music of Public Image Ltd.

PERFECTO!