«Ever had the feeling of having been cheated?». Jonny Rotten's words at the Sex Pistols' last concert before disbanding have gone down in history. It was January 14, 1978 and the English band closed a chaotic American tour at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco and also the first, glorious part of their history. «Perhaps» wrote Greil Marcus after the show and the dissolution «the only imaginable alternative for the Pistols' future – an unimaginative future that they themselves wanted to deny – was to abandon the scene or die in a plane crash».
Now that concert in San Francisco, of which you can read the period news at this link, will be officially published. Two other shows from the same tour will also be released, the one on January 5th in Atlanta (South East Music Hall) and the one on January 10th in Dallas (Longhorns Ballroom).
In addition to Rotten, the group at the time included Steve Jones on guitar, Paul Cook on drums and Sid Vicious on bass. The band, except of course Vicious, would only return to concerts in 1996.
The three concerts will be released on vinyl, in full version and in the right sequence: the one in Atlanta on February 28th, the one in Dallas on March 28th, the final one in San Francisco on April 25th. Also on April 25th they will also be available in streaming and on CD, gathered together in a titled box set Live in the USA 1978.