Or…The Great Johnny-Hoax/Paul-Stokes/Steve-Coax/Sid-Stroked Grand Finale
“Hey, rocket to Russia buddy!!!” The couple ahead of me in Ramones t-shirts and black leather are getting impatient. I’m getting impatient. The camera and tripod dig into my shoulder. Getting into Winterland on this chilly, January evening is glacial snailness. I am here to document an event that I expect will turn out to be seminal (please refer to both definitions) at worst, and transcendent at best. But the person taking my ticket informs me that cameras are verboten. Sighing, I check my ancient Bell & Howell 16mm with the box office staff and make my way into the smoky, cavernous hall.
Yeah, San Francisco, Winterland, January 14, 1978. What is all this about I am wondering? Opening the bill, The Nuns. They are indeed tongue-in-cheek hilarious, but with Alejandro Escovedo on board they can actually rock. They give us a good squeeze, substituting the lyrics in Suicide Child from “fascist bitch” to “fucking bitch.” The best moment is a piano/voice lounge piece performed by the black-clad vamp herself, Jennifer Miro. The line “I’m so lonely, I’m so lonely, so lonely…all the men in San Francisco are gay…” eliciting cat-calls and booing from the mainly male and mostly straight crowd. I’m entertained. Then The Avengers hit the stage with avengeance; great, tight and sexy Penelope Houston fronting a rocking power trio. I am hyped. They are the stars of the evening!
Ah, but the best/worst is yet to come…the set-change music is deafening…the Pistols emerge to hoots, cheers, delirium and derision and launch into a set that is even more deafening. Loud is not the word…it is EAR-RUPTURING! My cochlea still rattle 30 years on. They are not tight…they are loose as a goose…Sid slamming away at his bass (there’s no way he played on the album) oblivious to any specific notes…it’s all just a wash of low-frequency rumble; Cook and Jones trying to keep it together but to no avail…Johnny prowling the stage like a leopard in an icebox.
For thirty-five minutes an endless hail of objects arch their way onto the stage…at one point Johnny picks up a wristwatch yelling…“takes a licking but keeps on ticking.” For thirty-five minutes the house is almost as loud as the band, trading insults and witty banter with Rotten and Co. For thirty-five minutes I am in heaven, bouncing up and down, jostling leather and mohawks and trowled-on makeup. And then it happens…an arm reaches up from the crowd and right into Sid’s crotch. And there it stays for the rest of the set. The bass playing does not improve from this obvious stimulation. And almost as soon as it begins, it ends with the band walking offstage to Johnny’s taunting, “how does it feel to be cheated?”; Sid with blond, crotch-stroker Nancy Spungen (yes, it was Nancy) in tow.
Quite honestly I feel elated, not cheated. Like Thai kick-boxing, it’s the audience that makes the show….
