Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's Cain's...

Cain's Ballroom is a legendary, historic, and much-beloved concert and dance hall in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Best known as the place where Bob Wills got his start, way back in the 50s, Cain's has since become one of the top (and most famous) concert venues in the nation.

Everyone plays Cain's. Well, I doubt you'll ever see a Justin Bieber or Katy Perry concert there, so I guess I should say that everyone worth a shit plays Cain's, regardless of genre. Indie rock, folk, metal, alt country, acid bluegrass, whatever. All good artists eventually make their way to Cain's (I even seem to recall Scampwalker blogging about seeing Les Claypool at Cain's sometime back.) As an example, here's one I'd love to see, the Heartless Bastards, playing April 17...

Anyway, I sort of vaguely knew about the history of Cain's, how it fell into disrepair back in the 70s before undergoing a musical renaissance. Typical artistic riches to rags to riches story. And as a Sex Pistols fan, I knew the group had played Tulsa on their infamous 1978 U.S. tour (I didn't attend, BTW. In 1978 I was still driving a Big Wheel...). But I didn't know that the group's appearance at Cain's is widely credited for bringing the venerable spot back to prominence...

From this story in the Oklahoman

Larry Shaeffer and Scott Munz already had taken a chance on the decaying Cain's Ballroom building.
The two restored the aging music venue from its dilapidated condition in the late 1970s.Now they were about to take another chance with a new style of decadent music.

In 1978, Cain's Ballroom — originally known for western swing and country music dating to the 1930s — became one of only seven venues on the American tour of the British punk rock band the Sex Pistols. The Cain's show was the short-lived band's sixth stop on the tour. They never returned as a band, but they left a legacy.

"...Jeff Moore, historian at the Oklahoma History Center and project director for the proposed Oklahoma Pop Museum in Tulsa, said Cain's is the last operating venue the Sex Pistols played in America. “I think what the Sex Pistols show did historically is that it redefined Cain's as a venue for rock 'n' roll,” Moore said. “It was this historic moment where the Sex Pistols in a weird sort of anti-establishment way swept the state, not quite like The Beatles, but in a new way and lead this punk revolution that had a long-lasting impact on music.”

There was no punk rock scene in Oklahoma, he said. But about 800 people managed to navigate wintry weather that night. Many were curiosity seekers, but others were dressed in the new punk rock style that had been seen in New York and London. “I was glad to grab a date with them (Sex Pistols) because they were right up my alley,” Shaeffer said.

The show drew a lot of buzz. A number of undercover Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents and Tulsa police officers were in the crowd, waiting for members of the band to expose themselves, Shaeffer said. The Sex Pistols American tour was planned carefully to pick venues in conservative parts of the country to stir up publicity, Shaeffer recalled.

"...There was a hole in the Cain's dressing room where Sid Vicious is said to have slammed his fist into the wall. It was cut out and the section of wall is in a display in the Cain's office today.
Shaeffer says the Sex Pistols did not put Cain's Ballroom on the map, Bob Wills did that. But he admits that show put the ballroom back on the map to stay.“I was just barely keeping the place going,” Shaeffer said.

Is there a YouTube clip of this historic performance? Silly question. Of course there's a YouTube clip of this historic performance...



Pretty damn cool. And the comments at the end are hilarious. I can just imagine a bunch of my poor fellow Okies half-expecting some good 'ol southern-fried crap like Lynyrd Skynyrd (play Freebird, man!), and then getting Pistol-whipped...