Security at the Sex Pistols Concert

I remember earlier this summer in 2003, I had figured the worst concert I ever worked security at was and would forever be the 50 Cent/Jay-Z concert. Towards the end of that summer, I had never experienced a concert worse than the Sex Pistols at the Molson Amphitheatre in Toronto.

I remember the Dropkick Murphy's and some other band opened up for the Sex Pistols. Pretty well, everything was fine until the Sex Pistols hit the stage until the evening. I was workinging with someone else on the second level to guard the cameraman and his equipment as he filmed the performance that was being broadcasted on the Jumbotron. As the sun went down and the Sex Pistols took the stage, the aisle just became flooded with young people who didn't really care what their ticket stub said they were supposed to be. My partner and I ended up getting crushed up against the barricade and had to jump over it onto the other side in order to save ourselves. I remember at one point a fight had broken out. I ran into the maylay and grabbed the arm of one kid who was wailing on someone else with his friend. They both took off and I retreated back to my place of safety.

But there was one point during the concert where I thought things were really going to turn bad. Apparently, someone from the first row spat on Johnny Rotten, who stopped the show immediately and cursed the city of Toronto out. The band walked offstage midway through their set and, seemingly, the concert was over. In my mind, I knew it was some kind of a publicity stunt knowing the nature of the Sex Pistols. But the fans are more influential and they began getting very loud, unruly and I seriously thought a riot was about to break out. I knew the band was going to come back onstage and finish their performance eventually, but that five to ten minutes when they left was extremely tense for us working security in a sea of thousands of pissed off punks.

In my history of security, that was definitely the scariest concert I ever worked.