On Jan. 14, 1978, the Sex Pistols took the stage for a concert at the city’s Winterland Ballroom. Exhausted from a chaotic American tour, strung out on hard drugs and buried in infighting, it was clear the trailblazing punk band’s days were numbered.
Bassist Sid Vicious, notorious for his violence on- and offstage and for his habit of wearing swastika T-shirts, was in the depths of heroin addiction. He could barely stand upright, let alone play his instrument. Singer John Lydon, then known as Johnny Rotten, had been feuding with his bandmates for months and was clearly past the point of reconciliation. Guitarist Steve Jones just wanted out. As they played, an increasingly angry San Francisco crowd pelted the band with cups, ice, shoes and even a belt. “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” a disgusted Lydon said to the Winterland crowd as he left the stage. Those would be the last words he’d speak onstage as the band’s frontman. That night the Sex Pistols as the world knew them died in San Francisco. But on Wednesday in San Francisco’s Warfield theater, they were resurrected.
‘An obvious danger all along’
Despite, or because of, their chaotic nature, the Sex Pistols defined punk rock for decades to follow. Born out of an economically depressed era in England, the Pistols rebelled against anything deemed respectable by British society — be it the monarchy, organized religion, the Beatles or, famously, Pink Floyd. Wearing leather jackets, ripped jeans and facial expressions only achievable through heavy drug use and a desire for class warfare, the Sex Pistols connected to a generation disillusioned with the peace-and-love ethos of the 1960s. In a testament to the band’s simultaneous popularity and divisiveness, “God Save the Queen,” which features lyrics calling the royal family a “fascist regime,” hit No. 2 on the British singles chart despite being banned by the BBC.
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FILE: Left to right: John Lydon, Paul Cook, Sid Vicious and guitarist Steve Jones, members of punk group the Sex Pistols.
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“The ‘land’ they represented so well was that of young, uneducated, loosely unstable adolescence (or immediate post‐adolescence). An obvious danger all along was that they would buckle under the pressures and temptations of success, and true enough, Mr. Vicious buckled,” wrote the New York Times’ John Rockwell as the band descended into chaos.
Collapsing spectacularly, some would argue, was all part of the band’s punk aesthetic.
“It may be that the Pistols’ only alternative to the future the rock & roll world had imagined for them—a future devoid of imagination, a future made up of the rock & roll rewards and penalties they had set out to deny—was to quit the scene; that, or a plane crash,” wrote Rolling Stone’s Greil Marcus.
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Lydon quit the band following the Winterland fiasco, while Vicious continued his downward spiral. Less than a year after the San Francisco show, Vicious was arrested in connection with the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. He died of a drug overdose awaiting trial, on heroin rumored to have been purchased by his mother.
FILE: Johnny Rotten, left, and Sid Vicious ofthe Sex Pistols perform live at the Winterland Ballroom in 1978 in San Francisco.
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Even the venue barely survived the catastrophic show. Winterland Ballroom shuttered less than a year after the Pistols’ concert and was eventually demolished and cleared for condos.
As for the band, with just one album to their name (punk masterpiece “Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols”), the group became the defining cautionary tale of the dangers of rock ’n’ roll excess.
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Resurrected and returned
“Yeah, it was pretty grim to be honest with you,” said a typically understated Steve Jones when asked about Winterland in an interview with SFGATE earlier this week.
“I’d had enough of it. It didn’t feel like it had a future, pardon the pun,” added Jones, alluding to a line from “God Save the Queen.”
Jones agreed to the interview because, against all odds, the Sex Pistols are alive and returned to San Francisco on Wednesday.
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The Sex Pistols at the Warfield on Oct. 14, 2026, in San Francisco.
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Vicious is long dead and Lydon’s burned too many bridges to return (Among other things, Lydon called the new-look Pistols a “clown’s circus” and a “karaoke presentation”). But Jones and fellow founding members Glen Matlock and Paul Cook have joined with Frank Carter, ex-frontman of the mid-2000s punk group Gallows, for a reunion tour that stopped at the Warfield on Wednesday.
This iteration of the Sex Pistols is far gentler and more inclusive than the original. For example, it’s hard to imagine Rotten advocating for a women-only mosh pit like Carter did at the Warfield.
The band’s fans have been tamed with age as well. Wednesday’s crowd featured gray-haired headbanging and plenty of denim jackets, but no brawls or fistfights.
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“It’s always a mish-mosh. Parents with their kids. Younger people that are hip to the Pistols. It’s a good crowd. They love it, we love it. We put a smile on people’s faces and everyone has a good time,” said Jones.
The Sex Pistols at the Warfield on Oct. 14, 2026, in San Francisco.
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And don’t let it be said that Sex Pistols fans have lost their ability to party. One Warfield bartender said he sold just one N/A beer the entire night.
‘What punk rock is all about’
“We’re playing better than ever. Frank has a lot more energy. I love John, but I don’t think he could keep up right now,” said Jones, not afraid to needle his former lead singer.
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On stage, Carter lacks the unrivaled rage that made Rotten a singular frontman. But Carter compensates with charisma and a relentless motor. After a somewhat tepid first two songs, the concert kicked into a higher gear when Carter crowd surfed midperformance during “New York.” He followed the stunt with a personal tribute to the Warfield.
“When I was 15, I was on holiday and I drove past the Warfield theater. And No Doubt was playing … so this means the f—king world to me,” said Carter.
The Sex Pistols at the Warfield on Oct. 14, 2026, in San Francisco.
Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images
“An iconic room, and an iconic stage, full of iconic f—king rockers,” he added, gesturing to his elder bandmates.
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Carter also appears to have enlightened the band — hardly known for its ideal treatment of women and minorities — that openness and inclusivity are not antithetical to hard rock.
“Make loads of f—king room, more room than they f—king need,” said Carter while orchestrating the women-only mosh pit. “Because that is what punk rock is all about. It’s about making space for the underdogs, the downtrodden, the f—king outcasts, and that’s all of us in this room.”
It’s a new flavor for the famously antiestablishment band.
“Frank is great and there’s no history where there’s a deep resentment between John and us,” Jones said. “We’re just having a good time, which sounds weird.”
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‘We’re not the Rolling Stones, having someone wipe your ass every 10 minutes’
While the band is no longer openly hostile toward its fans, they aren’t above some light trolling. On Wednesday, they made the crowd sit through not one but two renditions of “My Way” by Frank Sinatra (a subtle nod to Sid Vicious, who covered the song himself) before closing out the show with their biggest hit, “Anarchy in the U.K.”
The Sex Pistols at the Warfield on Oct. 14, 2026, in San Francisco.
Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images
Just because the Pistols have aged and become more inclusive, doesn’t mean they’ve lost their bite. Nor the working-class resentments that powered them to stardom in the first place.
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“We’re not doing it on a super big-shot level. We’re not the Rolling Stones, having someone wipe your ass every 10 minutes,” said Jones, showing a flash of the band’s antagonistic roots.
Carter also went out of his way to thank all the working people, from the bar staff to the stagehands, who made the show possible. He even got in a dig at the United States’ healthcare system.
“I know you don’t have universal healthcare, so a mosh pit is a bit of a risk,” joked Carter.
FILE: The Sex Pistols at a press conference, 1977.
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As for the band’s dark connection to the city of San Francisco, at least Jones doesn’t seem to be holding onto it.
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“You know what’s funny, I wouldn’t have even put two and two together if you hadn’t mentioned it,” said Jones when asked about playing a show less than 2 miles from where the Winterland Ballroom once stood.
And if you can believe it, Jones says he isn’t holding onto a grudge against Lydon either.
“I’ve got no ill feelings for John,” Jones said. “What we did was magic and that will always be the case. We just drifted apart.”
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