As Mathiesen and Nordskog researched their previous book detailing the Pistols’ gig in Oslo, they came across numerous people who had attended or otherwise been involved with the band’s show at the Studentersamfundet in Trondheim the following day. It didn’t take long for this follow-up to gestate.
By July 1977, when the Pistols toured Scandinavia to escape the media circus that surrounded them back home, Sid Vicious was on board; his defiant swagger undermined by oafishness and a palpable lack of musicianship. The subtitle to this book refers to Sid’s Norwegian Romance, his brief dalliance with a 16-year-old girl called Teddie. Rather unromantically, however, she hailed from Harworth, Yorkshire, and had only moved to Trondheim when she was 14. Her stepfather knew the Studentersamfundet gig’s promoter and she was elected to act as translator.
The relationship provides a thread throughout the narrative, giving us more backstage encounters with the band than there were in the first book, though there are still plenty of contributions from those who were in attendance at the concert. This book also boasts photos of a much better quality – a by-product of Trondheim’s venue being much larger than Oslo’s Pingvin Club – making the whole thing a delight for those fans gunning for more from the Pistols’ archive.
