Sex Pistols (Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock) featuring Frank Carter Tickets

"Rock 'n' roll is over... The Sex Pistols were the bullet in the brain. They were the last rock 'n' roll band."

So said the Sex Pistols, sticking a stiff middle finger up at the musical legacy they tore down and built back up again. Bursting out of London in the early 70s, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Wally Nightingale defined the UK punk scene with a bunch of stolen instruments and an ear for anarchy that cut like a knife.

The decade that followed was theirs. Line-up changes brought in John Lydon (Johnny Rotten), Simon Ritchie (Sid Vicious) and Glen Matlock, as well as bringing them all into the orbit of manager Malcolm McLaren and designer Vivienne Westwood. Music, fashion, art and rebellion were never the same again.

As news of the band's infamous on-stage and off-stage behaviour fuelled more tabloid headlines, the Sex Pistols became the biggest band in the UK to have never released an album. By 1977, a signing to major label A&M Records was such big news that the press conference was held outside Buckingham Palace (in a deal that promptly fell apart within days, bringing Virgin Records into the picture instead).

There was another reason for the royal location though, since 'God Save The Queen' was the band's first major single release – an anti-establishment, anti-monarchist, anti-anthem that would go on to become the signature sound of the UK punk movement. Timed to coincide with Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee, the Sex Pistols had kicked a hornets nest (and they knew it).

A few months later, the track made it onto the band's first and only album – Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols. Now recognised as one of the most influential records of all time, the recording and release of the album is the stuff of legend. Music shops faced prosecution for indecency. The band were labelled a dangerous threat to the moral climate. Lawyers were forced to argue about the religious etymology of testicles. The Sex Pistols had made it to the mainstream.

And that's where they stopped. The band broke up – Lydon forming Public Image Ltd and Vicious tragically dying just two years later – to leave a wake that's still felt today. The aftermath was documented in Julian Temple's seminal film The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (completed with the band's unreleased soundtrack material) and the rest of the band went their separate ways.

A brief reunion in 1996 gave us The Filthy Lucre tour and, later, another great Temple documentary in The Filth And The Fury, before a second comeback in 2007 brought a handful of European performances.

Dormant again for almost two decades, 2024 saw Paul Cook, Glen Matlock and Steve Jones team with Frank Carter for a short run of sold-out fundraising shows at London's Bush Hall – cementing the band's legacy with one of the most significant tours in the Pistols' history. After an overwhelming response, Frank Carter and the Sex Pistols announced another one-off performance – playing Never Mind The Bollocks in full at O2 Forum Kentish Town, London on 26 September. 

In 2026, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Sex Pistols' infamous show at The Lesser Free Trade Hall, the band return to Manchester with a huge performance at the iconic outdoor amphitheatre, Castlefield Bowl. They'll be joined by special guests The Undertones and local legend Dr. John Cooper Clarke.