November 7, 2026
The 1970’s gave us a lot of different kinds of music, but none of them drove the point home harder than Punk Rock! It was raw! It was explosive! And more importantly, it basically gave a musical career to a lot of musically minded people who maybe weren’t the most musically talented. You didn’t have to have a great voice to sing punk, and you didn’t have to be able to play guitar like Eric Clapton or write lyrics like Bob Dylan either. You just needed a lot of energy and a lot of attitude! A box of throat lozenges probably came in handy as well. Basically, you just needed instruments and the willingness to make a lot of noise! The Sex Pistols were no exception to this rule. As Sex Pistol’s guitar player Steve Jones once said, “I couldn’t play and Johnny couldn’t sing, and when we plugged in, we created this gosh awful sound that people seemed to like!”
I was a little too young to take in a Sex Pistols show back in the 1970’s, so when the lads came to Dallas to screech out a few 1970’s memories at the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, Texas I decided to indulge myself a bit in a little English punk attitude. And here’s the review I posted for the Sex Pistols concert in Dallas.
SEX PISTOLS LONGHORN BALLROOM DALLAS, TEXAS! September 11, 2026
In 1978 one of my eight grade teachers made the comment how an English band called the Sex Pistols was invading the country, and with band members named Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious they were even worse than KISS! In Dallas, Texas the wild punk rockers invaded the legendary Longhorn Ballroom and put on a wild show where bass player Sid Vicious finished the show bleeding after some altercation with a fan. Forty-eight years later we were doing it all over again! Okay, things are a bit different these days. Sid Vicious left us back in 1979, and Johnny Rotten is now Johnny Lydon and plays with his own band Public Image Ltd, but drummer Paul Cook, guitarists Steve Jones, and original bass player Glen Matlock were still up for some good times, and if a band that’s been around for fifty years can managed to pull three original members on stage, well that’s a bit of a rock and roll miracle in itself!
I was wondering how many fans from the 1978 concert would make the show, but as I found a spot near the stage I didn’t see anyone milling around who looked old enough to have survived a 1970’s punk rock show. There were several folks around me who looked as if their grandparents might have even been a little too young to make that show. The legendary venue was carrying a great vibe for the evening though, and things got even better as the all-girl English band Panic Shack walked out on stage to kick things off. I say all girl band, but there was one guy in the group who was sitting at the drums. However, the four ladies on stage looked like they were having such a blast the poor guy was pretty much ignored. You’ve got to love a band that can belt out songs like SMELLARAT and TIT SCHOOL! As the girls (and guy) walked off the stage I think we all wanted to go party with them!
Before anyone could go party with Panic Shack though, the legendary punk rockers the Sex Pistols walked onto the stage, or Sexy P as the bass player of Panic Shack called them. The band’s original bass player Glen Matlock took that stage looking like quite the dapper, classic rock gentleman. Steve Jones, on the other hand, dressed in a ball cap and tee shirt looked a little like one of my uncles. However, when Steve fired up his guitar to HOLIDAY IN THE SUN the place went freaking crazy! Taking the band’s voice, Frank Carter charged onto the stage acting as if he was having the time of his life, and with enough energy to blow the roof off the legendary venue the guy won over the Dallas faithful before the first crowd surfer could leave the floor! Jumping around the stage with a huge smile and a riveting voice, the 42-year-old singer looked like a teenager among the band, but Carter made things very clear that he was just the singer. The big stars for the evening were the three guys slamming away on their instruments. “I’ve been doing this for twenty years!” he yelled. “But these guys have been doing this for fifty!”
After ordering those near the stage to open the pit, Carter jumped down into the middle of the pit and led us all through the song PRETTY VACANT, and we all got to belt out the words, “We’re so pretty, we’re so pretty!” Okay, those were the only words to that song I knew, but it still made a pretty awesome concert moment! What also made for a memorable moment was when Carter gave the order for a ‘girls only’ mosh pit, giving the female punk rockers on hand a chance to slam into each other a bit. That was something I’ve never seen but thought was kind of cool. Not only was Carter playing to the crowd, but he was keeping an eye on the fans to the point where he brought GOD SAVE THE QUEEN to a halt when someone up front started having some issues. I’m not sure what was going on, but he merely followed up with, “That just means you get to hear God Save The Queen twice!” No one was complaining about that. Nor did anyone complain when the band slowed things down a bit to let Carter croon out MY WAY. It wasn’t exactly the way Sid Vicious sang the song, but I suppose Carter did it his way. Another guy who proved he could do it his way was Steve Jones when he launched into a pretty lengthy guitar solo! Guitar solos at a Sex Pistols show? The evening was full of surprises. However, nobody was surprised when the guys ripped into ANARCHY IN THE UK, and everybody joined in! I’ve never seen so many fists pumping!
Although I’m not sure if anyone in the crowd saw the band play at the Longhorn Ballroom in 1978, what I thought was cool was the fact that back in 1978 country legend Merle Haggard played the club the very next night, and guess who was playing the Longhorn Ballroom the next night here in 2026. Indeed, Merle’s son Ben Haggard was playing. Now there’s got to be a country song in there somewhere or maybe even a punk rock song.
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