Sex Pistols' Famous Longhorn Ballroom Set for Release on Vinyl

On Jan. 10, 1978, the Sex Pistols played at Longhorn Ballroom in something of a local music folklore moment. It was the band’s penultimate stop on their U.S. tour, their last before disbanding until 1996. Famously, the marquee boasted a show from Merle Haggard to be played just nine days later.

If you’ve been around Dallas, you know the story. On March 28, you’ll be able to hear it.

The Sex Pistols are releasing three limited-edition LPs through Universal Music Group featuring the live recordings of their last three shows on the 1978 tour, including their evening at Longhorn Ballroom. The run also included a stop at Great South East Music Hall in Atlanta on Jan. 5 and their final night at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco on Jan. 14.

Steve Jones, the band’s guitarist, told the Observer about the new deal with UMB back in 2022.

“We got a new deal with Universal. They wanted to re-release a bunch of the stuff,” he said. “There's some rarities on there. If you're a fan, you’ll probably enjoy it. I don't know, I think it's to coincide with the Pistol TV show, of course. I personally don’t care to listen to the Sex Pistols. I’m over it. But, like I said, if you're a fan, you probably will like it.”

If you’re not as cynical as Jones, you’ll be excited to learn that the record is pressed on off-white vinyl with inserts of newspaper clippings about the show. The 13-song setlist closes with the classic “Anarchy in the U.K.,” rebranded as “Anarchy in the U.S.A.”

Longhorn Ballroom’s artistic director Jeff Liles says that the venue didn’t have anything to do with the record, but is glad that it’s being released.

“Given the fact that it was 1978 and portable audio recording was still pretty primitive, people shouldn’t expect that this will sound like most of the live records they’re used to,” he says. “That said, this thing will have tremendous nostalgic appeal.”

Although the venue wasn't involved with the release, the Longhorn coincidentally greenlit an exhibition with never-before-seen images by photographer Bob Gruen, who shot the show that night.

Also taking photos that night was Curtis Smith, a senior at Denton High School, who sneaked in his Minolta camera into the Longhorn Ballroom to see the Sex Pistols. He paid just $3.50 to get in and wound up with photos of a bloodied Sid Vicious and of a fish in the mouth of Barry Kooda of the Nervebreakers, who opened that night.

“When you went in, there was a bunch of old cowboys at the bar that had been there all day drinking and a handful of people dressed in punk rock garb with piercings and hand-painted faces,” he told the Observer in 2022. “It was a small handful of people that were into the punk rock scene at the time so there were equal parts them and the drunk cowboys and a crowd of folks there seeing what it was all about, checking out the spectacle, so to speak.”

The record will be available on March 28 for $29.98, or in a bundle that comes with a limited-edition T-shirt for $57.98.

“Honestly, a lot of people probably won’t even peel off the shrink wrap,” Liles says. “They’ll probably frame it and hang it on the wall.”