The Sex Pistols are about to shake America’s foundations again — and the timing couldn’t be more perfect. Nearly 50 years after their explosive debut, these punk rock revolutionaries are dusting off their leather jackets for an unexpected return to North American stages in 2025.
Picture this: London’s gritty 100 Club, its walls still echoing with the ghosts of ’76, served as the backdrop for their tour announcement. Fitting, really. The same underground venue that birthed Britain’s punk movement now bears witness to its resurrection.
The refreshed lineup packs quite a punch. Original members Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Glen Matlock are joining forces with Frank Carter — yeah, that Frank Carter from Gallows and the Rattlesnakes. It’s a clever marriage of punk’s old guard and new blood, though John Lydon (the artist formerly known as Johnny Rotten) remains conspicuously absent from the equation.
“The world needs this band right now,” Carter declares, his words carrying more weight than a stack of Marshall amps. And honestly? Looking at the state of things heading into 2025, he might be onto something.
The tour’s opening night feels like a deliberate middle finger to history. They’re kicking things off at Dallas’s Longhorn Ballroom — the same joint where cowboys pelted them with, well, everything not nailed down back in ’78. “Pigs’ hooves and bottles and what not,” Jones reminisces, probably suppressing a smirk.
This time around? Less livestock, more legacy. They’re promising full performances of “Never Mind the Bollocks” — their groundbreaking 1977 album that basically rewrote rock’s rulebook.
The elephant in the room remains Lydon. Following their legal dust-up over the “Pistol” TV series, relations haven’t exactly warmed. Jones puts it bluntly: “The last thing he wants to do is have anything to do with us right now.” Matlock’s take carries a hint of weathered resignation: “John’s had all our phone numbers. Can’t say I’ve seen many missed calls.”
Their 2025 victory lap will tear through major cities — Washington, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Montreal, Toronto — before wrapping up at LA’s Hollywood Palladium on October 16. But don’t call it nostalgia. These aren’t your typical aging rockers trying to recapture past glories.
“We’re a bit older but we play just as well, if not better,” Matlock insists. There’s something refreshing about that lack of pretense.
New music? Jones keeps that door cracked open: “It’s early days. Let’s see what happens.” Classic non-committal musician speak, that.
In an America that’s arguably more divided than when the Pistols first stormed its shores, their return feels weirdly appropriate. As Carter notes, “People want to come and just be entertained, they want to enjoy themselves.” Sometimes the best medicine for troubled times comes wrapped in three chords and a healthy dose of attitude.
Who’d have thought that in 2025, we’d still need the Sex Pistols to remind us what rebellion sounds like?
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