I've loved the Sex Pistols for about 35 years and after a while there's not a lot left to discover - they only made one album and played a couple dozen shows before imploding - so you feel like you kinda know everything about them. So imagine my surprise when last night I stumbled upon this short doc about a matinee they played for kids of struggling firefighters who were on strike on Christmas Day 1977, which ended up being their final show in England before breaking up in America:
As well as documenting what would be the last home stand of one of Britain's most influential groups, Never Mind the Baubles captures a different side of the band. Here are Britain's most notorious punk band putting on daft hats and being kind to children.
As Temple remembers, they arrived in Huddersfield at the height of a moral panic and tabloid frenzy. "To most people they were monsters in the news. But seeing them playing to seven- and eight-year-olds is beautiful. They were a radical band, but there was a lot more heart to that group than people know."
100% of any other Pistols footage from the time and you see Johnny Rotten sullen and absolutely miserable, but at this show he was beaming. Serving cake to kids, letting them smear his head with it while singing; he was, as Steve Jones commented while watching the footage, a pig in shit. Even the faux-hard cartoon buffoon Sid Vicious couldn't help but smile. I AM NOT MADE OF STONE, PEOPLE! How the hell was this story so hidden??!?! Or was it just me?
Enjoy! And viva lá Pistols!
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