The aborted Scandinavian 1978 tour.
Poster taken from the great
Swedish Concert Posters site.
Thanks to Thomas Jonsson.
It was going to start in Finland and then move on to Sweden. After that Germany, Holland and Belgium.
This tour would have included roadie John ''Boogie'' Tiberi and for the scandinavian part, at least, manager Malcolm McLaren.
Early Jan 1978 Finland's biggest daily news paper ran an editorial about the dangers of letting the Sex Pistols play concerts in Finland. Nine different youth organisations also petioned the finnish Home Office, asking them not to grant the band work permitts. After additional political pressure the Home Office agreed with the anti-Sex Pistols campaigners. When the band heard about this they offered to play Helsinki for free, which would mean that no work permits would be needed. As a result the Home Office made the decision to ban the four members of the band from entering the country by declaring them ''unwanted visitors''. This part of Finnish law had been reserved for known terrorists and members of organised crime syndicates up till then. It was the first, and probably the last, time it was used to stop a music concert. The official reason was that three of the members had criminal records, including drug charges. Kinda ridiculous really, since that applied to quite a few artists. Even after the news of the band splitting up in San Francisco the government still ordered extra police forces to guard the airport, in case the band tried to sneek in to the country. There were rumours about how the split was just something made up by the band in order to fool the Finnish authorities. The hall where the concert would have taken place was also guarded by the police.
A second night in Finland on Thursday Jan 19 1978 was also planned.
An EMA-TELSTAR flyer for Jan and Feb 1978.
This image was supplied by
Joakim Zetterstroem, Sweden
This image was supplied by
Christer Larsson, Halmstad, Sweden.
This would have been a much bigger concert than the ones on their 1977 tour of Sweden. The show was sold out in advance. Unused tickets for this gig were kept by many fans because of the rumours of a later show taking place in Feb 1978. A lot of them have been sold as collectors items.
This gig was appearantly moved to hockey arena JOHANNESHOV before it was cancelled. Tickets were sold at Svala Och Söderlund. Thanks to Joakim Zetterstroem, Sweden for this info.
Lund, Sweden, at Olympen Jan 1978.
Another planned gig. This was moved to Akademiska Föreningen before it was cancelled. Thanks to Mats Liljegren for this info. Both Lund and Stockholm would have featured Swedish singer/guitarist Kal P Dal as a support.
In 1991 my girlfriend at the time got hold of the guy with the box and got me one (they're all gone now, don't mail me for the guy's adress).
The t-shirt was also given away by WB in the USA as part of a press kit including posters, photos and some other promotional stuff.
I bought it in the mid 80's from a 60's record dealer who didn't care much for the band, but had been involved with the aborted Stockholm Jan 1978 show.
It has been stated that this was only made in 200 - 300 copies, but a few years ago the author told me that he printed 2000 of them.
McLaren tried to sue Stevenson for using the colour Yellow, thinking it looked to much like the NMTB album cover!
He was not successful.
Go to Cancelled 1978 Shows In Hamburg.
through-out the SUMMER OF HATE fanzine!
