Vacant, but not too pretty

NME.com reports that Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke has spoken out about his ordeal at the hands of Sex Pistols man Johnny 'Rotten' Lydon and his entourage in July.

It's a story many will already be familiar with, but to surmise: an incident occurred backstage at the Summercase Festival in Spain, which allegedly began with a conversation between Lydon and Okereke and ended in something of a brawl, also involving members of Foals and the Kaiser Chiefs. The Bloc Party man also alleges that he was racially abused by a member of Lydon's entourage, supposedly being told his problem was his 'black attitude'.

The incident was reported to the police in the both Spain and the UK, but no further action has been taken.

I was lucky enough, a couple of months ago, to interview Foals guitarist Jimmy Smith, who witnessed and was indeed involved in the incident. Clearly a decent and intelligent guy, he backed up Okereke's story and seemed genuinely disgusted at Lydon's behaviour.

They say you should never meet your heroes, and that impression has been magnfied one hundred-fold for several British indie musicians, who, it seems, were all big fans of Lydon beforehand. As Jimmy said: "Johnny Rotten was one of my heroes, I thought the whole arsehole thing was just an image for the press."

It's rather depressing to witness the descent of a once-great (and he was, as you can see here), iconic public figure into a grumpy grandad, seemingly interested only in 'filthy lucre' and endless narcissism. The worst thing about Lydon is his recent exploits leave you not only with the impression of someone who cares far more about these things than any principles, but indeed of someone who has actually always been like this - we just never realised.

Even at the best of times, The Sex Pistols were always more about blind, taste-challenging provocation than focussed political argument. And that was why people loved them. But a lot of people, I think, believed (and still believe) that the band were doing more than just flogging the brilliant formula - literally anarchic punk rock - they had created. But I'm not at all sure there was ever belief behind the bollocks. And there certainly isn't now.