Sex Pistols are releasing three concert recordings for the first time ever. Live in the USA 1978 captures the British punk legends as they whipped audiences in Atlanta, Dallas, and San Francisco. Each concert will have its own special edition colored vinyl release (red, white, and blue, naturally) before the trio are made available in a three-CD set and for digital download. The first concert in the series, Atlanta, arrives February 28 with future releases to follow.
In 1977, Sex Pistols —Johnny Rotten (aka Lydon), Paul Cook, Steve Jones and Sid Vicious — released their first and only record, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. The album revolutionized rock’n’roll and offended many listeners along the way.
The tour began on January 5, 1978, at Atlanta’s Great South East Music Hall. “Now, we came to dance – what did you come for?” says Rotten before the band launches into “God Save The Queen” in Atlanta. “That was the new British National Anthem.” Audiences responded to the band’s hellish antics accordingly, especially when the band played a reworked classic, “Anarchy in the USA.”
Here’s a radio advertisement ahead of the January 10 show at Dallas’ Longhorns Ballroom: “They said no one could be more bizarre than Alice Cooper or more destructive than Kiss. They have not seen the Sex Pistols…Banned in their own home country, England’s Sex Pistols denied admittance to the United States – the Sex Pistols bring the new wave to the Metroplex this Tuesday night in the Longhorn Ballroom.”
Sex Pistols’ show at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom on January 14 would turn out to be their last show until 1996. After performing The Stooges’ “No Fun,”singer and lyricist Rotten signed off with a challenge: “Ah-ha-ha. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated? Good night.” Days later, Sex Pistols called it quits.
