Less than 5 months after Elvis died, and two days before what would have been Presley's 43rd birthday, rock 'n' roll's latest threat to the status quo, the Sex Pistols, played Memphis.
Members of the Sex Pistols -- Sid Vicious (with cigarette), Steve Jones and Johnny Rotten (behind Jones) -- arrived at Midtown's Taliesyn Ballroom amid a tense scene as the concert had been oversold and angry fans mobbed outside the venue. Inside, the audience waited 90 minutes for the band to take the stage.
Photo: Jim Shearin, Memphis Commercial Appeal
It would be part of their only U.S. tour, one which consciously avoided New York and Los Angeles while playing several conservative southern cities. They did no Elvis covers that night.
Johnny Rotten, on stage at Midtown's Taliesyn Ballroom in Memphis
It was also the occasion of the first "Elvis vigil" by hardcore fans, and the contrast was played out in the national press.
San Francisco Examiner, Monday, January 9, 1978
Note: former Presley bodyguard Dick Grob calls the Presley event at the Memphis Fairgrounds less than "fourth class."
The Commercial Appeal's music writer Walter Dawson gave the band high marks:
In a front-page review published the day after the concert, Dawson reported that, "What the Pistols proved was that they are indeed first-rate rock and rollers, soaked heavily in that tradition and possessing a frenzied rage that has been lacking from rock for too long."
The night Memphis met the Sex Pistols >> The Commercial Appeal
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/jan/05/the-night-memphis-met-the-sex-pistols
Sadly, the groundbreaking group would soon fragment after this tour ended, following an amazing finale at San Francisco's Winterland.
Read more here:
Sex Pistols - Memphis 1978
http://www.guerrillamonster.com/memphis/sex-pistols/index.html