Two brief excerpts from Dispatches From the Kingdom of Outsiders by Tim Sommer. All rights reserved.

Maybe 15 years ago, I found myself frequently using the phrase “The Kingdom of Outsiders.” I used this in my writing, in conversation, in social media posts, etcetera. I used it casually; I used it intently.

It had a fairly specific meaning for me. Primarily, it meant us.

I felt the Kingdom of Outsiders was a powerful descriptor of the land of music, art, books and film where I had found shelter and comfort at the precise moment I was shuffling, shivering and sluicing through the agony, mystery, wonder and terror of puberty. I also felt it was an excellent way to describe the ephemeral land which housed the artists we discovered when we thought there was no one who could possibly understand us.

Did an artist’s image or music make you feel heard or seen, or make you sense that you might be different from the larger adolescent world around you? Did an artist speak the words you wished you could say? Did just knowing they were there, and that other people liked them, too, make you feel less alone?

This was the Kingdom of Outsiders.

On Friday May 15th, Public Image Ltd. performed at the Ritz nightclub in New York City and obliterated those boundaries between theater and real life, between the mock violence and the implied threat of the Dead Kennedys or the Sex Pistols and the real desire of an audience to destroy a band and everything they stood for, and the encouragement of the band for them to do so.

It's the first time I've ever seen a performance leave the stage/frame and the control of the performer (and the controlled reactions of the audience) and enter the gut; by doing what they were doing, in front of who they were doing it in front of, PIL knowingly created a performance/theater that reached into that spot right below the chest and just above the stomach, that spot where you feel fear and terror before you feel it anywhere else.

It is also the first time that PIL has actually done what they've always said they were going to do, actually lived up to and acted on everything they claim to stand for and have stated that they wanted to achieve. In this sense, May 15th's show was really the first true Public Image Ltd. performance. It just so happened that PiL chose to debut in the wrong place at the wrong time.