Christmas day, 1977: The Sex Pistols play a benefit for the children of striking firemen.
The Christmas gig you did in Huddersfield in ‘77, you got cake pushed in your face by a bunch of kids. Can you tell us about that?
Rotten: ’All true. Right, well Huddersfield was at a time when we were banned from playing any normal gigs. So what we did on Christmas day was we rented a venue and invited the kids from the local orphanages down and also the children from the striking firemen and garbage collectors. We did two performances, one for a regular crowd that night, but in the day for all those kids. And we set it up that there’d be like Christmas cakes and all of that and the kids just went wild with it, and why not? It was the best gig I think I’ve ever done. You know, to be playing to ten or eleven year olds really getting yak and dancing to songs like ‘Bodies’, and not finding it offensive at all. They saw it for what we were, a hilarious laugh; not frightening, not monsters from hell.’
Amazing home footage of this gig was featured on a BBC Christmas special a few years ago about people’s Christmas home movies from the 50s-80s!
Public Image Limited interviewed by Robin Banks in Zig Zag #90, December 1978. Photos by Dennis Morris. Part 3.
Public Image Limited on the cover of Zig Zag #90, December 1978. I’ll scan the interview and excellent Dennis Morris pics from this one later.