Sex Pistols feat. Frank Carter have announced six additional UK dates for their upcoming Anarchy In The U.K. tour, as the band prepare to mark 50 years of punk and half a century since the release of the song that helped change British music forever. Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock will once again join forces with Frank Carter for a run of UK shows this December, expanding a tour that already includes dates across England, Scotland and Ireland.
Sex Pistols
The newly announced shows will take the band to Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham, Portsmouth and Bristol, adding six more opportunities for audiences to experience the Sex Pistols catalogue performed by three of the musicians who created it, with Carter continuing in the role of frontman.
The new dates begin at O2 Academy Leeds on 4th December, followed by NX in Newcastle on 5th December. After the band’s previously announced Dublin date, the tour returns to England for Liverpool Olympia on 12th December, before heading to O2 Academy Birmingham on 14th December, Portsmouth Guildhall on 15th December and The Prospect Building in Bristol on 16th December.
The expanded tour arrives at a particularly significant moment in the Sex Pistols story. 26th November 2026 marks 50 years since Anarchy In The U.K. was released, a milestone that provides the backdrop for a celebration of the song, the band and the movement they helped ignite.
When Anarchy In The U.K. arrived in 1976, it landed at a moment of considerable social and economic tension in Britain. With its confrontational lyrics, jagged guitar attack and refusal to conform to the conventions of mainstream rock, the song offered a soundtrack for a generation increasingly frustrated with the status quo.
For bassist Paul Cook, the song’s enduring impact can be traced back to that atmosphere of unrest: “With Anarchy, I think we tapped into a feeling of unrest around the country at the time. The message was pretty simple – just have a go and get out there and do whatever you want to do. It was a new world.”
The Sex Pistols had already spent much of 1976 establishing themselves as one of the most disruptive forces in British music. Their early shows in London, including appearances at the Marquee, the 100 Club and the Nashville, helped establish the band’s reputation for chaos and confrontation, while their residency at the El Paradiso strip club became another part of the mythology surrounding their formative years.
Their impact quickly extended beyond London. A pair of performances at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall in June 1976 would become particularly influential, with the audiences including musicians who would go on to form or join some of the defining bands of the post-punk and alternative scenes, including Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths, The Fall and Buzzcocks. By the time the Sex Pistols appeared at the legendary 100 Club Punk Special in September, punk was beginning to emerge as a genuine cultural movement rather than simply an underground phenomenon.
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The band’s incendiary live reputation and growing following eventually brought them to the attention of major labels. Their signing to EMI and subsequent release of Anarchy In The U.K. helped propel punk into the mainstream, even as the band’s attitude and music challenged the industry that had embraced them.
Cook remembers those early days as something of a musical guerrilla campaign: “It was kind of like a commando raid. I don’t even think a lot of places knew we were playing there. We just turned up and set up. It was all a learning curve for us – getting out there and playing live – we were learning on the job.”
That sense of immediacy remains central to the band’s live identity. Half a century after those formative shows, Jones says the current incarnation of Sex Pistols feat. Frank Carter has found a similar sense of momentum on stage. “We’re having a blast – we’re like a well-oiled machine right now – and it’s been incredible to get out there with these songs we wrote 50 years ago. We love it. Frank’s a great frontman and really gets the crowd going.”
Jones also emphasises the connection between the musicians and the audiences who continue to embrace the Sex Pistols’ songs decades after they were first recorded: “Every person in the audience loves these songs as much as we do and it’s an absolute pleasure to get out there and play them.”
Carter’s involvement brings another generation’s perspective to the band’s live performances. Best known for his work with Gallows and Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, Carter has long been associated with punk’s confrontational spirit, making him a natural fit for the Sex Pistols’ uncompromising catalogue.
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The collaboration gives the songs a new live dimension while retaining their connection to the musicians who originally created them. For audiences, the tour offers the opportunity to hear tracks that have become embedded in British music history performed by Jones, Cook and Matlock, alongside a frontman capable of matching their intensity.
The December tour now encompasses 11 UK and Ireland dates, taking in venues ranging from large London rooms to more intimate regional venues. The run begins in Leeds before travelling through Newcastle, Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham, Portsmouth and Bristol, culminating in two London shows at O2 Academy Brixton and Eventim Apollo.
The tour’s timing also makes the 50th anniversary more than simply a retrospective celebration. The original Sex Pistols may have helped define punk’s first explosive moment, but the songs continue to resonate because the themes of alienation, frustration and challenging established ideas remain relevant.
Five decades after Anarchy In The U.K. first shook the British music establishment, Sex Pistols feat. Frank Carter are bringing that history back to the stage — not as a museum piece, but as a living, loud and confrontational part of punk’s continuing story.
Sex Pistols Featuring Frank Carter @ Download Festival XXII - Saturday
Tickets for the newly announced dates go on general sale at 10am on Friday 4th September.
UK & Ireland Tour Dates:
DECEMBER
4th – Leeds, O2 Academy
5th – Newcastle, NX
7th – Dublin, Ireland, 3Arena
9th – Edinburgh, Corn Exchange
10th – Glasgow, O2 Academy
12th – Liverpool, Olympia
14th – Birmingham, O2 Academy
15th – Portsmouth, Guildhall
16th – Bristol, The Prospect Building
18th – London, O2 Academy Brixton
20th – London, Eventim Apollo
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