Frank Carter & The Sex Pistols Bring (Grown-Up) Anarchy to Manchester [Photos]

I have to admit that, ahead of this show, I did have a sense of trepidation about the whole thing. Arriving an hour before show time to a half-full venue didn’t help either. That being said, if you’d asked me twelve months ago who I thought the perfect frontman for the Sex Pistols in 2024 would be, there could only be one answer… Frank Carter.

So, what did I expect of tonight? Well, I expected exactly what I got. A room full of grown-up Sex Pistols fans with a smattering of younger fans either here with their parents or here because of the “Frank Carter Factor.” There were a few mohawks on show, but the whole thing felt a lot more, dare I say it, grown-up than their tabloid front-page antics from the ’70s.

However, by the time the band arrived on stage, the Academy was packed to the rafters, and fans were singing and bouncing along to every song. It may not have felt as dangerous or as anti-establishment as it did back in the day, but for just over an hour, the Sex Pistols treated these fans to a gloriously raucous trip down memory lane.

Rattling through “Holidays In The Sun,” “Seventeen,” and “New York,” it wasn’t long before Carter was up to his familiar antics as he performed a snarling “Pretty Vacant” from the middle of the moshpit, losing his radio pack in the melee but picking up a nifty Apple Watch for his troubles. Coasting through their set, you almost feel like the rest of the band (Matlock, Jones and Cook) have had their time in the limelight and are just content to let Carter take centre stage while delivering thunderous renditions of “Bodies” and “God Save The Queen.”

Of course, the whole thing is missing some of the unpredictability synonymous with the band when they hit the headlines back in the punk rock heyday. This is 2024, though, and we’re all a lot older; we’ve got mortgages, bills to pay, and work in the morning; it catches up on all of us (even punk rock’s most dangerous band). However, despite all that, nothing was going to stop these fans from soaking up every snotty punk rock moment of this night as, front to back, Frank and the Pistols had the Academy rocking.

So… Frank Carter and The Sex Pistols… Like I said at the start, I had my concerns heading into this one, but tonight, they proved they are a match made in punk rock hell.

Sex Pistols Set List:

1. Holidays In The Sun
2. Seventeen
3. New York
4. Pretty Vacant
5. Bodies
6. Silly Thing
7. Liar
8. God Save The Queen
9. Submission
10. Satellite
11. No Feelings
12. No Fun
13. Problems
14. E.M.I.
15. My Way
16. Anarchy In The U.K.

Frank Carter & The Sex Pistols @ Manchester Academy (Manchester, UK) on September 24th, 2024

24 photos