If Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke was a fan of John Lydon’s work before, he won’t be after the altercation with Lydon and his roadies at the weekend.

The two men’s bands were on the bill for Spain’s Summercase festival on Saturday. The story goes that Okereke approached Lydon to ask him if he would ever consider reforming his 80’s band, Public Image Ltd. At that point, reports say Lydon “became intimidating and aggressive while his entourage responded with a racist tirade including the statement, ‘Your problem is your black attitude.’”

However, most of what we’re reading has been carefully crafted to suggest that while Lydon was present, he had no part in the actual physical attack on Okereke. The Bloc Party singer was left with “severe facial bruising, cuts to his face and body and a split lip”.

Lydon moved quickly to dismiss the reports of the attack, claiming jealousy on Okereke’s part, but that doesn’t explain why the incident was reported to the police by Okereke and corroborated by The Foals’ singer Yannis Philippakis. Nor does it explain how Kele “brought the trouble to [Lydon's] door”, since he’s a self-professed massive fan of PiL. Philippakis and Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson stepped in to help Kele during the attack, which was broken up by festival security.

In an official statement, Kele said:

“It’s not an issue of the physical assault, even though it was an unprovoked attack, it is the fact that race was brought into the matter so readily,” Okereke says in a statement. “Someone as respected and as intelligent as Lydon should know better than to bring race into the equation, or socialize with and encourage those who hold such narrow-minded attitudes. I am disappointed that someone I held with such high regard turns out to be such a bigot.”

Lydon responded with:

“When you are at a festival with bands who are jealous fools, lies and confusion usually follow. If they need publicity so badly, this is the allegation universe they run into.”

The artist further says that Okereke should “grow up and learn to be a true man. When you have achieved as much as I have, come back and talk to me. It’s a shame that the wonderful world of the media is riddled with nonsense like this.”

It’s not the first time the Sex Pistols singer has caused trouble at a gig. Recently, he upset Welsh singer Duffy when she tried to introduce herself at an awards ceremony in London in June.

They will now play the Brixton Academy on 9 and 10 November in addition to their 8 November concert.

Original members John Lydon, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock will perform at the concerts.

On one hand, it sounds like great news. This is one act people didn’t expect to see together again. On the other hand it seems like a perfect opportunity to cash in on the 30th anniversary of God Save The Queen.

The reason I’m saying that is because I read in NME today that John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) has been mouthing off about various celebrities on Virgin Radio.

Thing is, Lydon’s no fool – he knows that by insulting various celebrities, the tabloids will go wild for a story and - voila – lots of lovely free publicity for the Sex Pistols. Buy our music, come see our gigs…pleassseeee….

A few years back, Lydon went on national TV on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! we learned on that show that these days Lydon is more of a property developer than a punk rocker. I remember being disappointed then that the poster boy for the punk movement had gone ‘big business’. It just didn’t seem fitting.

So, now I’m acutely aware that Lydon is very much the businessman these days, and that he’s perhaps not railing against the establishment too hard these days. Maybe I’m a little cynical about their motives. What about you?