The Sex Pistols frontman defended the trans-inclusive space during a Denver show before telling the crowd: “The dance floor belongs to every fucking body.”
Frank Carter had a male concertgoer removed from the Sex Pistols’ Denver show after the pair clashed over a women-only mosh pit Carter was setting up in the crowd.
Audience footage from the October 9 show at the Ogden Theatre captures the confrontation unfolding as Carter prepares to introduce ‘No Feelings’.
The singer had asked men to clear the dance floor so women could take over the pit for the song. A man in the crowd repeatedly objected as Carter tried to make his point.
“Every time there is always a man that tells me they could do this all the fucking time,” Carter said. “Like, they can’t.”
When the attendee continued shaking his head, Carter’s patience disappeared. “It’s not your lived experience,” he told him. “So just shut the fuck up.”
Carter then put the question more plainly: “How is it so difficult for you to see space made for women at a Sex Pistols gig?”
“Ask any one of them if they feel safe in every mosh pit.”
The exchange continued as Carter attempted to move on, at one point hitting his microphone against his own head while comparing the conversation to banging his head against a brick wall.
After the man continued to interrupt, Carter called for security and had him removed from the venue before returning to the point he had been trying to make.
Carter told women in the crowd that the temporary space was somewhere they could dance without worrying about being hit, groped, intimidated or mansplained at, while asking the men surrounding the pit to help keep it that way. Referring to the space men have traditionally occupied in mosh pits, Carter added: “They’ll let you occupy the space that they have occupied their whole fucking lives. And they didn’t even fucking know.”
With the attendee being removed, Carter added one final twist of the knife: “and the best part is, you get to do it in our best Sex Pistols song ever,” he told the crowd. “And he’s gonna fucking miss it.”
The band then launched into ‘No Feelings’.
After the song, Carter opened the dance floor back up to everyone. He described making that temporary space as “the bare minimum” audiences should expect from bands. “The dance floor belongs to every fucking body,” he said. “Look after each other. Have fun. Be safe.”
Carter doubled down on the principle behind the moment in subsequent Instagram Stories, arguing that men offended by a band creating space for women were “part of the problem”. He also clarified that his women-only pit was trans-inclusive and intended for people who do not ordinarily feel safe dancing because of the risk of physical, sexual or psychological violence. Contemporary reports document those follow-up posts.
The story took another turn when Carter shared a message he said had come from the removed attendee’s father. The sender apologised for his son’s behaviour and said it was not how he had been raised, while praising Carter for giving women in the crowd the opportunity to participate safely.
The sender’s identity has not been independently verified.
Creating dedicated space for women and non-binary fans at shows is not new territory for Carter. He has publicly championed the practice for years as a way of giving people who can be squeezed out of conventional pits an opportunity to participate.
Carter has fronted Sex Pistols members Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock since 2024, when the collaboration began with a run of benefit shows at London’s Bush Hall.
The lineup toured Australia last year, with BLUNT catching the band at Melbourne’s Festival Hall. Even then, Carter spent much of the night trying to get the room moving, eventually jumping into the crowd himself during ‘Bodies’.
Denver offered a rather more pointed demonstration of the same philosophy: Make room. Look after each other. Then everyone gets the floor.
MORE IN News
