We weren’t there, but we heard that…

Despite over 7 000 people claiming to have attended the Sex Pistols’ legendary gig at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall on 4 June 1976, only about 40 people were actually in the audience that night.

To a large extent, those 40 or so people were not even that impressed with what they saw. They were shocked, they were amused, they were disdainful, and they were disinterested. But, most importantly, the Sex Pistols’ music challenged their assumptions of what rock should sound like and look like.

And that’s why a live performance that, by all accounts, could have been called a failure at the time, has, in retrospect become known as “the gig that changed the world”.

The audience may have been small, but it contained some people who would go on to have a large influence on the independent music scene – Morrisey (who later formed The Smiths), Bernard Sumner, Ian Curtis and Peter Hook (who went on to form Joy Divisionand New Order), Mark E Smith (who would later form The Fall), and Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto, from The Buzzcocks. It was the latter two who organised the Sex Pistols’ gig, hiring the Lesser Free Trade Hall for the grand sum of £32 for the night.

The Sex Pistols’ catalytical effect on the British music industry propelled them into mythical status. Not bad for a band that only ever produced 1 studio album and 4 singles during a short two and a half year career.

Like all catalysts, however, the Sex Pistols burned bright and hot for a brief period before self-destructing. They courted controversy with their behaviour and songs, like the classic God Save The Queen, which was banned by radio stations across the UK and refused shelf-space by most record shops. Their gigs were chaotic and iconoclastic. The names Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious are synonymous with nonconformity and irreverence.

It’s no wonder that so many people claim to have been at the Sex Pistols’ Manchester gig. Who can blame them? It’s hard to accept that you missed out on the moment the world changed.