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. 

“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. 

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