Watch the Sex Pistols’ Christmas Party for Kids–Which Happened to Be Their Final Gig in the UK (1977) [Video]

I’m not sure the Sex Pis­tols had “avail­able for children’s par­ties” on their press release, but on a cold and grim Christ­mas in 1977, that’s exact­ly what hap­pened. While many Britons were set­tling in for a warm yule­tide, the Pis­tols decid­ed to host a party/benefit for the chil­dren of strik­ing fire­men and min­ers at a venue called Ivanhoe’s in Hud­der­s­field, UK.

It turned out that this after­noon gig, along with an evening con­cert with full-grown punks in the audi­ence, would be the Pis­tols’ final UK appear­ance. In a few weeks the band would fly to Amer­i­ca for a set of ill-fat­ed gigs and then break up. Soon after that Sid Vicious would be dead.

At the children’s con­cert John Lydon hand­ed out t‑shirts, but­tons, records, and posters. There was a pogo danc­ing com­pe­ti­tion with a skate­board as a prize, dis­co music on the sound sys­tem, and a gigan­tic cake with “Sex Pis­tols” writ­ten on it. (A food fight not only broke out, …