Punk is dead, people have been saying since 1978 or so. Of course, that’s a lie. It’s still there, just constantly changing.
The Sex Pistols led the first wave of punk that outraged a strait-laced Britain and then the world in a blazing comet of a career that lasted only two and a half years.
Can the mostly reunited punk pioneers still thrash the system, 50 years after four London misfits formed the band?
In a raucous celebration of noisy rebellion at Auckland Town Hall on Wednesday night, three of the original Pistols and singer Frank Carter showed there’s plenty of life left in anarchy.
A blistering hardcore opening set by West Auckland punks the Bleeders set the stage for the Pistols, who romped on the stage to Holidays in the Sun, the opening track of their one and only album, 1977’s Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.
Few bands have changed music quite so much based on a single album of original material, and there’s a reason we’re still spinning Pretty Vacant all these years later.
Johnny Rotten’s oddly captivating whinge of a voice was a big part of the Pistols’ magic, so can the band endure without it? Photo / Getty Images
In the band’s first show in New Zealand since a reunion in 1996, it’s a little more ex-Pistols, because angsty frontman Johnny Rotten (better known as John Lydon these days) refused to join this round of reunion touring. Rotten’s oddly captivating whinge of a voice was a big part of the Pistols’ magic, so can the band endure without it?
The band is now founding members Steve Jones on guitar and Paul Cook on drums, as well as original bass player Glen Matlock (who left the band in 1977 to be replaced by Sid Vicious). Rattlesnakes and Gallows singer Frank Carter, a mere pup at 40, takes Rotten’s place on vocals.
Carter is a genial showman, a big change from Rotten’s sneer. He gives a welcome energy to a band of mostly retirement age, leaping about the stage and into the audience, crowd-surfing and starting up a swirling circle pit in the middle of the Town Hall floor during Bodies.
While he frequently sounds a bit like Rotten, the tattooed, wiry Carter is a far more showy, extroverted performer, climbing up into the Town Hall’s balcony seats to moan through the Pistols’ version of the Stooges’ No Fun. His style may lack the grit of some of Rotten’s takes, but also showcases the solid bones of the original songs.
Rotten and Sid Vicious have become the public face of the Sex Pistols’ legacy over the decades. Vicious was a self-destructive addict who was dead by 21 and could barely even play the bass, yet his battered, bloody image helped define the punk moment.
But it was Jones, Cook and Matlock who provided an awful lot of the muscle behind those punk anthems. Jones originally started the band. Matlock also wrote the majority of music for the songs on Never Mind The Bollocks, while Rotten supplied the words.
And watching the original trio perform with precision at Auckland Town Hall, one could appreciate the raw power of Jones’ pounding riffs - that ascending storm at the start of Anarchy In The UK or the buzzsaw opening to God Save The Queen! - or how the thunderous bass of Matlock intertwines so well with Cook’s drumming. It turns out they’re a really tight band after 50 years of playing this stuff.
The audience may have been heavy on grey-haired fans, but also included a fair helping of all ages. There’s a weird dissonance in watching young women recording themselves singing along to Pretty Vacant for their TikTok, but gosh, they seemed to be having a good time.
It was always said punk was for the young, but that was before the original punks started getting old themselves.
Speaking to RNZ in February, Jones said “I’m well happy. I’ll be 70 this September and you know, it’s one shot you get … We’re just having a good time. We make a couple of quid, we’re having a good time.”
What was perhaps missing from the Sex Pistols 2025 was the whiff of danger. Looking at grainy videos of their heyday gigs in grotty clubs, it all looked like more of a war than rock ‘n’ roll.
This time around, nobody spat at the band and none of them bled on stage, and even the crowd-surfing and moshing was generally friendly. At one brief punch-up, Carter defused it with a cheery “Lads, we’re all in this together.” While the lyrics were still confrontational, if nowhere near as shocking as they once seemed, the vibe was positive.
They aren’t the angry young Pistols of 1977, but how could they be? Instead, there’s something distinctly cheerful about watching hundreds of fans of all ages tossing their fingers in the air and singing, “I wanna be anarchy.” The Sex Pistols are now about anger as sweet release.
“It was angry but teenagers are meant to be angry, that’s their job,” Jones told RNZ. “There’s something wrong with you if you’re not angry as a teenager even if you don’t know why you’re angry or you don’t want to be angry. That’s part of being a teenager.”
It feels good to see punk icons like Jones, Cook and Matlock get their due. And in this troubled world, it still feels pretty good to rage against the machine.
Sid Vicious would probably sneer at the idea of a middle-aged singalong to Pistols tunes, but he’s not here any more, and Jones, Matlock and Cook still are. God save the Pistols.
The Sex Pistols also perform on Thursday at Christchurch Town Hall.
