US Tour Archive

SEX PISTOLS — US TOUR ARCHIVE

A comprehensive archive of thirteen original pieces of ephemera from the Sex Pistols' US tour of December 1977 – January 1978, presented in thirteen frames.

Performed dates:

Concert ticket, Great SouthEast Music Hall, Atlanta, GA, 5 January 1978

Concert ticket, Taliesyn Ballroom, Memphis, TN, 6 January 1978

Polaroid, Memphis, TN, 6 January 1978

Backstage Guest Pass, Randy's Rodeo, San Antonio, TX, 8 January 1978

Concert ticket, Randy's Rodeo, San Antonio, TX, 8 January 1978

Two concert tickets, Longhorn Ballroom, Dallas, TX, 10 January 1978

Concert ticket, Cain's Ballroom, Tulsa, OK, 11 January 1978

Polaroid, Tulsa, OK, 11 January 1978

Concert ticket, Winterland Arena, San Francisco, CA, 14 January 1978

Cancelled dates:

Concert ticket, Leona Theatre, Homestead, PA, 28 December 1977

Backstage pass, Leona Theatre (cancelled), Homestead, PA, 28 December 1977

Concert ticket, Ivanhoe Theatre, Chicago, IL, 31 December 1977

Concert ticket, The Agora, Cleveland, OH, 1 January 1978

Frame dimensions:

Seven frames, each: 8 3/4 × 10 3/4 inches (22.2 × 27.3 cm)

Six frames, each: 8 1/8 × 10 5/8 inches (20.6 × 27.0 cm)

A comprehensive private archive of original ephemera from the Sex Pistols' infamous nine-date US tour of December 1977 and January 1978 — the catastrophic run that ended the band, twelve nights chronicled by road manager Noel Monk in 12 Days on the Road with the Sex Pistols (1990). The archive was assembled by the consignor over the course of fifteen years and is built directly off Monk's account: each piece is a tangible artifact corroborating a specific story detail in the book, from the cancelled dates the tour never reached to the venues it did, and the polaroids and backstage credentials of the people inside the operation.

The archive captures the full physical paper-trail of the tour. The cancelled-show tickets (Ivanhoe Theatre, Chicago, 31 December 1977; The Agora, Cleveland, 1 January 1978; Leona Theatre, Homestead PA, 28 December 1977, with corresponding backstage pass) document the dates councils and venue owners pulled at the last hour, when local pressure made the gigs untenable. The performed-date tickets (Great SouthEast Music Hall, Atlanta; Taliesyn Ballroom, Memphis; Randy's Rodeo, San Antonio; Longhorn Ballroom, Dallas; Cain's Ballroom, Tulsa; Winterland, San Francisco) form a complete sequence — the entire route the band actually played, ticket by ticket, between 5 and 14 January 1978.

No equivalent assembled archive of this period exists; to reproduce it would not be a practical possibility; the material has dispersed across five decades, and several of the cancelled venues no longer exist.

PROVENANCE:

From the collection of Joshua White