On that day, I stood with a gaggle of other excited teenagers waiting to board the minibus that would take us to see the Pistols at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. I was 14 years old, a fan from the moment I saw photos of singer Johnny Rotten, guitarist Steve Jones, bass player Glen Matlock, and drummer Paul Jones dressed in lurid, ripped and torn gear from manager Malcolm McLaren’s shop, Sex (co-owned with Vivienne Westwood), on London’s fabled King’s Road.
Only five or six years older than me, they became my band well before I ever heard their music. Mind you, there had been no chance of hearing their first single (the impossibly exciting “Anarchy in the U.K.”) on the radio or TV. It had been banned by the BBC after the plastered Pistols, goaded by equally drunk TV presenter Bill Grundy, swore on the regional U.K. show “Today.” This effectively ended Grundy’s career and gave the band instant notoriety that McLaren exploited to the hilt.
The only trouble was that McLaren had been too successful. As we stood shivering in the cold, the hip youth club leader who’d organized the trip to see the Pistols met us with the devastating news that the show had been canceled. Responding to the tidal wave of outrage the Pistols’ TV appearance had caused, University Vice-Chancellor Dr. Frank Thistlethwaite had scrapped the show because he wasn’t satisfied it would “go off peacefully.”
Thistlethwaite had scuppered my chances of seeing not just the Pistols but The Clash, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, and the Damned (support for the Budapest Park show) in their white-hot prime. I have never forgiven him.
The Sex Pistols made four great singles, “Anarchy,” “God Save the Queen,” “Pretty Vacant,” and “Holidays in the Sun,” and one hugely influential album, “Never Mind the Bollocks,” before falling apart after a disastrous 1978 tour of the United States.
Johnny Rotten bailed, disgusted by McLaren’s obsession with publicity at any cost, which had made him fear for his safety on the street, and being paid peanuts. Reverting to his given name of Lydon, he formed the musically far more challenging post-punk band Public Image Limited, whose first single, “Public Image,” was a top 10 hit in the United Kingdom. They’re still going strong, and performed at the annual Sziget music festival in Budapest, on Friday, Aug. 15, 2008.
Cook and Jones played along with McLaren for a while. In June 1978, he teamed them up with Ronny Biggs, a small-time criminal who’d achieved notoriety as part of the 1963 Great Train Robbery and escaped to Brazil. The single they made, “No One is Innocent,” is truly horrible. Still, it managed to make it to number seven in the U.K. singles charts. It was what was known back then as a “double A-side”. The other “A” was Sid Vicious’ mangling of Frank Sinatra’s mawkish standard “My Way.”
Unlike “No One Is Innocent,” the cover of “My Way” was quite funny. However, the film that accompanied it showed him lurching around Paris in a swastika t-shirt, horrifying old men and women who, no doubt, remembered the Nazi occupation of Paris, and was provocative in all the wrong ways.
Vicious had replaced Glen Matlock in February 1977, his arrival signaling the end of the band as a supremely cool, thrilling rock-and-roll band. He was barely on the Pistols’ “Never Mind the Bollocks,” and his studied stupidity made the entire band look dumb.
Even though I got “Bollocks” as my Christmas present album that year and loved it (I still do), I lost interest after Vicious arrived. He legitimized punk’s genuinely ugly, thuggish, racist aspect, which I hated.
By that time, “gobbing,” spitting great globs of green phlegm at the band, had become de rigueur at punk concerts. There was no way I wanted my punk finery, which included a very expensive t-shirt from McLaren’s shop, covered in snot. Apart from the Clash, the Damned, the Ramones and the occasional gem, the music itself had become formulaic to the point of parody.
When Vicious was arrested for killing his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, in October 1978, and subsequently overdosed and died, it was the end of punk for me. But the spirit of rebellion the Pistols sparked all those years ago has never really been extinguished. Even if the 50 or so bands and the 100,000 or so fans attending that “System-Breaker” event in Heroes’ Square on April 10 had only the vaguest idea who the Sex Pistols were and are, the concert was an expression of the punk attitude that music is an agent of change.
The remaining Sex Pistols are all 70 this year and have embarked on what might be their final tour. After falling out with John Lydon after a dispute over “Pistol,” a risible TV series based on their heyday, they recruited a heavily tattooed singer named Frank Carter who bellows the lyrics to the original songs that make up the setlist and leaps around like a puppy on speed while the rest of the band barely move. Still, they make a splendidly thunderous, inimitable racket. I’ll be there to finally salute the band that changed my life 50 years ago in the flesh for the first time.
STOP PRESS: In an echo of what happened 50 years ago, I’ve just heard that the Pistols guitarist Steve Jones has broken his wrist, so the show at Budapest Park could well be postponed. Keep an eye on official channels like the Budapest Park website or the Sex Pistols’ official social media (Instagram: @sexpistolsofficial; Facebook: Sex Pistols Official; X: @sexpistolsoffcl) for the latest updates closer to the date.
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of April 24, 2026.
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