The Sex Pistols, as Greil Marcus observed in a review of their final show, in San Francisco on January 14, 1978, made more history than music in their brief, explosive career. They left behind a provocative legacy of chaos that would take longer to sort through than their hopelessly tangled finances, and a legend that would continue to grow and fester like an untreated sore on the backside of Western culture long after a disgusted Johnny Rotten asked the San Francisco crowd, "Ever feel like you've been cheated?"

The Sex Pistols also made one of the best rock-and-roll albums of all time (Never Mind the Bollocks -- Here's the Sex Pistols), but they're remembered less for the songs they wrote than for the role they played as the renegade standard bearers of the international punk conspiracy that Never Mind the Bollocks seemed to ignite. All of which makes it difficult to take seriously Filthy Lucre Live (Virgin), the new, live Sex Pistols album that's due out on July 30, or even the very concept of what's looking to be a well-orchestrated Sex Pistols reunion summer tour.

But first, the dirty facts of the matter: Filthy Lucre Live was recorded just over a month ago, on June 23 at England's Finsbury Park in front of 30,000 spectators. It features the four original Pistols -- guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook, bassist Glen Matlock, and, of course, the artist formerly known as John Lydon -- bashing out the same set of tunes they might have played on the '78 tour if they'd been capable of playing a set at the time.

The disc includes all of the 11 tracks from Never Mind the Bollocks; it's rounded out by two B-sides, "Did You No Wrong" and "Satellite," and one cover, "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone." It was produced by Never Mind the Bollocks producer Chris Thomas. And it comes out on the eve of a Sex Pistols US tour that will bring them to Great Woods on August 10.

The good news, at least for anyone who's planning on attending one of those shows, is that after all these years the Pistols definitely do not suck. Even allowing for the technological advances of the past 20 years, these are probably the best live recordings the band have ever made. They also beat the hell out of the version of "Anarchy in the UK" that Megadeth were doing circa 1988. Sure, the Pistols rhythm section feels a bit stiff on the first few tracks ("Bodies," "Seventeen," and "New York"). But with Matlock on board at least they've got a rhythm section, something they lacked after he was replaced by the late Sid Vicious, a guy known mainly to use his bass as either a prop or a weapon.

Jones, who is quoted in the Lydon autobiography Rotten: No Irish -- No Blacks -- No Dogs as admitting that he didn't know how to play guitar when the band formed, has spent the last decade honing his chops in LA, where he's done session work with Iggy Pop and Guns N' Roses. So he has little trouble re-creating the metallic, wall-of-guitar assault that buttressed Never Mind the Bollocks. And though Cook was last spotted drumming behind Bananarama in 1992, he can still pick up the pace for the Pistols. But, as always, a disproportionate share of the band's obligation to shock, outrage, or otherwise offend falls on Rotten, and it's really a hopeless mission. Although he half-heartedly baits the audience between songs, even he knows that using the word "fuck" in public or proclaiming oneself the "antichrist" doesn't carry the weight it once did.

Writing in 1989, in the book Lipstick Traces, Marcus could still reason that "rock 'n' roll has not yet caught up with" the song "Anarchy in the UK." That's a claim he couldn't make three years later, when he wrote the introduction to Ranters & Crowd Pleasers, because Nirvana had just changed the face of popular music in America and the world and it seemed the "no future" Rotten had predicted a decade and a half earlier was finally coming to pass. Rotten makes no effort to deny that the Sex Pistols are back to collect some royalties from an alternative nation that they planted the seeds for in '76. He's always had a knack for pre-empting the critics, with lyrics like "We're so pretty, oh so pretty, we're vacant" and songs like "Seventeen" ("I'm a lazy sod"). And he's done it again, by christening this the "Filthy Lucre" tour and taunting the audience at Finsbury Park with the refrain "Fat, 40, and back" on the intro to "No Feelings."

"The Sex Pistols," as Marcus points out in Lipstick Traces, "were a commercial proposition . . . launched to change the music business and make money off the change." They were cheated out of most of the cash. But Never Mind the Bollocks still gives me chills because it documents a sea change that has become ingrained, fictionalized, and sensationalized in the annals of our culture -- and because it rocks. If Filthy Lucre is any indication, then the Sex Pistols are going to be making more music than history this time around -- and more money, too.