“Open up the mosh pit.” 

Frank Carter, the heavily tattooed 42-year-old vocalist currently fronting the Sex Pistols, stood at the lip of the Longhorn Ballroom stage Friday night and gestured toward the floor where hundreds of bodies were pressed up against a barricade. 

Behind him stood guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock, three-fourths of one of the most influential punk bands of all time, and two of whom (Jones and Cook) were returning to a venue they last headlined 48 years ago. 

The evening had been long in coming: An originally scheduled date in 2025 had to be pushed a year owing to Jones breaking his wrist. (“Thank you very much for waiting for us,” Carter said at multiple points Friday.)

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Original Sex Pistol Glen Matlock didn’t speak during the show, allowing for his instrument to do all the talking.

Anticipation was high; history hung heavy in the air.

With five words — “Open up the mosh pit” — Carter unlocked something. The concert suddenly shook loose from the burdens of expectation, memory and myth and exploded to life, as a mosh pit coalesced while the Sex Pistols, the stage adorned with amplifiers kitted out in neon pink and yellow, tore into “Pretty Vacant.” 

Beer was flung, bodies were writhing and churning, and an ecstatic roar rose to the rafters. 

“Are you fucking awake now? Are you fucking awake now?” Carter screamed at the song’s conclusion. “Then let’s have a fucking gig, shall we?”

Over the course of roughly 75 minutes Friday, the Longhorn Ballroom did indeed have a fucking gig — a relentless tear through nearly all of the band’s lone studio album, 1977’s “Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols” (only “E.M.I.” failed to make the cut) and a blistering trio of covers: Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart’s “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” the Stooges’ “No Fun” and Paul Anka’s “My Way.” (There was, unsurprisingly, a fair bit of overlap between the 1978 and 2026 setlists: 10 of the 15 songs played 48 years ago were heard Friday.)

The Sex Pistols, with help from Frank Carter, hadn’t played the Longhorn Ballroom in 48 years.

Beyond serving as the band’s return to the site of one of its most notorious gigs, Friday’s performance in Dallas kicked off the band’s United States tour, which will take them across the country and conclude Oct. 18 in Los Angeles.

“Seven weeks in your beautiful country and we decided to start at the infamous Longhorn,” Carter said.

It’s a run of dates roughly four times the size of the British band’s 1978 tour, which effectively imploded after just five shows. 

That late ‘70s stop at the Longhorn Ballroom was, much like the rest of those shows, more confrontation than concert. Many attendees Friday lingered in front of the display case in the back of the venue showing the memorabilia and press clippings from that very appearance.

Battling intense drug addiction, personality clashes and crowds bent on provocation, the Sex Pistols disintegrated in San Francisco and would not reconstitute in any meaningful form until 1996, for the Filthy Lucre Tour (bassist Sid Vicious died from a drug overdose in 1979).

For his part, former vocalist John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten) has vehemently denounced both the current configuration and the tour the Pistols and Carter are mounting, calling it “karaoke.” Bile aside, it does get at an interesting point about authenticity and what constitutes “seeing the Sex Pistols.” 

Carter, filling in for a departed and displeased John Lydon, proved himself to be a worthy substitute, bringing as much of the traditional Sex Pistols vibe as possible.

Plenty of people have howled online and elsewhere about this iteration of the band being less than or somehow diminished, with Lydon and Vicious (for what one would hope is a glaringly apparent reason) not involved. Detractors can complain all they like — and they will until the end of time — but feeling and intent are important too. 

The Sex Pistols have a fractious yet influential history. That this tour exists at all feels like a minor miracle and shouldn’t be viewed as trying to claim a mantle which doesn’t belong to them, but rather an approximation — an attempt to provide a conduit for those who weren’t alive or didn’t have the chance to behold a band playing the songs which have laid a foundation for a half century of inspiration. 

The Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter is no more spare parts or karaoke than The Who, or Journey, or Rush, or any of the half dozen (or more) veteran acts touring with few or, in some cases, no original members. 

That cognizance of the gulf between then and now was evident in multiple ways Friday, not least of which was Carter stopping “God Save the Queen” so an audience member in distress down front could receive medical attention. It was a far cry from Vicious being punched in the face and bleeding freely while performing in 1978.

Opening up a women-only mosh pit for “No Feelings” was further evidence of an evolution in thinking — Carter cuts quite the charismatic, considerate figure, a neat juxtaposition with his popped-veins vocal stylings.

“Break the rules, but have some respect,” Carter told the crowd. 

Guitarist Steve Jones has been named one of Rolling Stone’s greatest guitarists alive.

Jones, Cook and Matlock didn’t address the Longhorn Ballroom, preferring to let the loquacious Carter handle the public address and letting their mind-shearing musicality do the talking for them. 

From the exultant roar of the dyspeptic opener “Holidays in the Sun,” through to the pummeling “Bodies,” and the seething “Problems” and the set-closing “Anarchy in the U.K.,” a song whose nihilistic fury seems timelier now than when it was first written, the Pistols and Carter were locked in, loud and forceful throughout. 

The near-capacity crowd ate it up, phones outstretched to capture nearly every moment, shouting and singing and basking in the presence of a profoundly important band. 

Those who missed out on Friday’s showcase may get the chance to see it elsewhere: A professional camera crew was in attendance, documenting the evening — local filmmaker Paul Levatino was spied milling about beforehand, adjusting equipment — and a myriad of YouTube clips have doubtless already proliferated. 

Welsh punk outfit Panic Shack opened the night. The band is a prime example of the women-fronted bands ushering in a new era of punk music.

Whether Friday’s performance served as a capstone or the start of a new chapter for the Sex Pistols remains to be seen. Jones is 71, while Cook and Matlock are 70, so further adventures aren’t necessarily foreclosed, but there was also the sense returning to the Longhorn was equal parts exorcism and homecoming. 

The Sex Pistols’ long-awaited return to the Longhorn Ballroom was a furious, thrilling blaze of a night, an eruption of feeling best summed up by an enthusiastic Carter aside: “What a fucking gift; what a joy!”