Punk at 50: Sex Pistols reunite with Frank Carter for summer tour
Five decades on, the movement that once blew everything up is gearing up to do it all over again.
Photo: Laurie Lynn Stark
Sex Pistols are celebrating 50 years of punk in the only way that makes sense: causing chaos up and down the country with Frank Carter at the helm.
Next summer, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock will be joined once again by Carter for a run of headline shows, hitting The Piece Hall in Halifax (July 11th), Castlefield Bowl in Manchester (July 12th), Cardiff Castle (August 1st) and Scarborough Open Air Theatre (August 2nd). It’s a tour that feels half celebration, half resurrection.
To understand why this run matters, you have to go back to where the Pistols came from. They erupted out of mid-70s London during a moment when Britain felt both economically stagnant and culturally exhausted. Formed in 1975, their ripped shirts, safety pins and leather weren’t just aesthetics, but part of a new visual language shaped in Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s King’s Road shop, which soon became a strange little incubator for everything punk would become.
And then came 1976. Their now-mythic show at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall, today widely considered “the most important concert of all time,” truly ignited the movement. The crowd was tiny, about 50 people, but members of those 50 went on to form bands like Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths and Buzzcocks. It’s rare you can point to one gig and say: That’s where a cultural shift began. But with the Pistols, you can.
Their rise was chaotic by design. Under McLaren’s management, they courted controversy constantly, from swearing on live TV to releasing God Save the Queen during the Silver Jubilee (promptly banned by the BBC). Their only studio album, Never Mind the Bollocks (1977), hit number one and became one of punk’s defining texts. But the story burned out as quickly as it started: a disastrous US tour, Johnny Rotten announcing the split onstage, Sid Vicious dead within a year. Yet still, the legacy refused to fade.
Fast-forward to 2024, when Jones, Cook and Matlock reunited and brought in Frank Carter as frontman, originally to help save London’s Bush Hall. The fit turned out to be perfect. Carter, of Gallows and Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, brings a raw, frantic energy that feels both reverent and wildly alive, the kind of presence the Pistols’ catalogue thrives on.
By 2025, the re-formed Pistols were tearing through venues from Australia to Japan, including a chaotic night at the Royal Albert Hall where Carter somehow summoned a giant circle pit in one of the most ornate rooms in the country. Steve Jones summed up this new era perfectly: “If it ain’t fun, I ain’t doing it. I’m too old for bullshit.” Honestly? Fair enough.
Support comes from The Undertones, Panic Shack, The Stranglers and even Dr. John Cooper Clarke across select dates.
Sex Pistols feat. Frank Carter — 2026 UK dates
• 11 July — Halifax, The Piece Hall (with The Undertones + Panic Shack)
• 12 July — Manchester, Castlefield Bowl (with Dr John Cooper Clarke)
• 1 August — Cardiff Castle (with The Stranglers, The Undertones + Panic Shack)
• 2 August — Scarborough Open Air Theatre (with The Stranglers, The Undertones)
If you want a reminder of how punk started, and how it still refuses to behave, 2026 might be your summer.