As much as I would love to conjure up a pristine recording of this famed gig I can't I am afraid. However, whilst this is not a new post (the link goes back to July 2023), such is the gravity of this particular anniversary it is worth directing people back to the 'I Swear I Was There' documentary DVD.
Having arranged a gig at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall in June, Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto brought the Pistols back for a return fixture just six weeks later. This gig would be Buzzcocks first 'proper' gig (they weren't ready to play the June date)... oh and the actual first Buzzcocks gig occurred in April at the Bolton Institute of Technology.
Sex Pistols
(Lesser Free Trade Hall, Manchester 20th July 1976)
The story does not warrant a retelling here, watch the film for chapter and verse on that score. Suffice to say that if the 4th June gig was sparsely attended, the few that were there did a good job of spreading the word that something extraordinary was in the making and the return of the rag-tag cockney quartet was not something that the savvy ones should miss. And they didn't. On this night fifty years ago the Pistols played once more, watched by an audience that included the movers and shakers to be that would propel Manchester to a position of music prominence for the next 20 years or so.
It got press to from Jonh Ingham in the 31st July issue of Sounds too!
(Review from the collection of John Maher)
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