Speaking of the Sex Pistols, Which I'm Always Happy to Do

50 years ago last week, the Sex Pistols played "The Gig That Changed Music Forever" to about 40 people in Manchester:

On June the 4th 1976 The Sex Pistols played a poorly attended gig at a small inaccessible venue in Manchester the Lesser Free Trade Hall. There were only around 40 people in the audience that night but the impact of that tiny gig on the city of Manchester was absolutely seismic and the ripples of it are still spreading out today.

In fact it could be argued that without this gig the world would never have seen the Smiths, the Buzzcocks, The Fall, Joy Division, New Order, Simply Red, Happy Mondays and without the Smiths and the Manchester movement would there ever have been an Oasis and the Britpop movement.

Think about the ripples of inspiration that came as a result of those bands maybe there would be no Nirvana, Green Day, Suede, Arctic Monkeys, Blur Radiohead, all of whom are acts that owe a debt to bands formed in the sticky carpeted Isles of the Lesser free trade Hall.

This gig acts as a kind of balancing point for the music scene in Manchester without it things could have been very very different today not just for the city itself but for the UK as a whole and beyond.

Want the documentary about the show? You got it! And YES people, you ARE quite welcome!