"How many of you were here the first time around?": The Sex Pistols are back at the 100 Club after nearly 50 years

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The Sex Pistols returned to the scene of one of the most famous triumphs on Friday night when they headlined the 100 Club in Oxford Street.

They were billed as The SPOTS (Sex Pistols On Tour Secretly), a reprise of the name the band used in August 1977 when they beat the post-Grundy affair bans on the group by performing under an array of different pseudonyms.

With the 100 Club’s capacity limited to just 300, tickets were distributed to fans via ballot. There were a smattering of more famous names though – Noel Gallagher, Paul Weller, Bobby Gillespie, Gary Kemp and er, ex-Formula 1 driver Damon Hill, all turned up to pay homage to the band that changed musical history.

Of course, at present they sport ex-Gallows singer Frank Carter on vocals. The rest of the band fell out with John Lydon over the use of the band’s songs in the Disney+ TV drama Pistol, which is based on Steve Jones memoir, Lonely Boy. Jones, drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock hadn’t intended to revive the band after the ructions over Pistol, but in 2024 were convinced to play three fundraising gigs to save Bush Hall in West London, close to where Cook and Jones grew up.

They brought in Carter on vocals and the gigs were such a success that the band’s comeback has been extended into 2025.

The 100 Club gig saw them play the whole of Never Mind The Bollocks, as well as a couple of covers which the original band performed – I’m Not Your Stepping Stone and the Stooges’ No Fun.

"How many of you were here the first time around?" Carter asked before acknowledging the rest of the group. "Put your hands together for the greatest punk band of all time."

‘First time around’ of course refers to 1976 when the group played the 100 Club a number of times, including the two-day Punk festival of September that year that saw them supported by The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Subway Sect.

The original group fell apart after their chaotic US tour of January 1978 and since then there have been occasional reunions in 1996, 2002 and 2007. Not many would have predicted another, especially after the falling out with Lydon, but this latest Pistols’ comeback continues to the Royal Albert Hall tonight (March 24) where the group headline the first of this week’s run of Teenage Cancer Trust shows.