Supporting The Sex Pistols

COUNCILLORS TO VET PUNK ROCK GROUP

Leicester Daily Mercury -
Saturday 04 December 1976

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Backfire hits Pistols, Man City Programme ban

Sunday Mirror -
Sunday 05 December 1976

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Derby Sex Pistols show banned

Birmingham Daily Post -
Monday 06 December 1976

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NME: AND AFTER ALL THAT, THE DEAR LADS TUSSLE WITH THE CITY FATHERS

NME Derby Cancellation
4 Dec 1976

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Ooh the excitement, the Sex Pistols were coming to Derby again

Sex Pistols The Cancelled Derby gig 1976
Blog / Marko / Pub. JANUARY 19, 2016

Online or archived PDF

Ooh the excitement, the Sex Pistols were coming to Derby again (having already played CleoТs on 30 September). Upon hearing the good news I promptly went down to the local record store R.E.Cords and purchased my ticket for the mighty sum of £1.60. ...

'No Show' press article

Sex Pistols backfire
6 December 1976, source unknown

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TICKET

POSTERS

PHOTO

Book: Sex Pistols: The Pride of Punk

By Peter Smith

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"The first three gigs were scheduled for the University of East Anglia Students' Union, Norwich (December 3, 1976), the Kings Hall, Derby (the gig that DJ John Peel turned up to on December 4, 1976), and the City Hall, Newcastle, on December 5, 1976 (the concert that my friends and I had tickets for). All these concerts were canceled. The students at the University of East Anglia held a sit-in protest, to no avail. The Pistols' tour bus headed straight for Derby, where the bands stayed in the Crest Hotel and were met by a group of reporters who would follow them on the tour. It was a cold winter; not the weather to be traveling around the country on a bus. The economic climate also remained poor, with inflation at 16 percent, and the government had just negotiated a £2.3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

In Derby, the local council considered allowing the bands to per- form, but only if the Sex Pistols first auditioned for local councillors. The bands refused, although The Damned suggested that they would be willing to do so, which annoyed McLaren and the others. The Damned played one gig and were then sacked from the tour. Newcastle Councillor Arthur Stabler explained that the City Hall gig was canceled "in the interests of protecting the children" (bombedoutpunk website) and so the tour set off for Leeds."

Images of England Through Popular Music:
Class, Youth and Rock 'n' Roll ...

By K. Gildart

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(more..) [extract] "when a number of parents started to organise in order to prevent the show. The Derby Evening Telegraph used its front page to warn that people were prepared to use force. A small group were
averse to even allowing the band to perform privately in front of the leisure committee.

protestors threaten to mount a large picket

A caller to the paper's news desk warned that parents would use stink bombs, smoke bombs, air raid sirens and violence if necessary. They would also mount a large picket.

According to the Derby Evening Telegraph, ‘the irate parents did not want Derby to be labelled a filthy town'.48 The paper passed on these messages to the police and the council. The editor no doubt felt that this would influence the decision on the concert. However, there was a voice of pragmatism amongst the welter of ‘moral outrage'.

Councillor Mick Walker, leader of the council's minority Labour group viewed the whole thing as a farce that was trivialising the work of the local authority. Walker felt that their role as elected representatives did not include being ‘guardians of public morals'. He said that he would not be attending the audition and hoped that all his Labour colleagues would take a similar decision.*?

Lydon's mum

John Lydon's mother provided a similar critique of the way in which councillors were prioritising the wrong issues. The councillors annoy me because they sit back and don't do their job that they're supposed to do. They keep banning kids who want to see them [Sex Pistols] but they won't rehouse people, they leave people homeless on the streets ... they just sit back and say this band can't play ... because of the violence. I think it's more violent people sleeping on the streets and giving them no homes.~*?

Mrs Lydon's comments articulated the working-class alienation experienced by many inhabitants of high-rise housing blocks on council estates, who, like the Lydons, had been left behind by Harold Wilson's particular brand of ‘socialism'.

Her son would often dedicate the song ‘Liar' to the former Prime Minister at a number of Sex Pistols performances. Here again was an example of the link between class and popular music.

For working-class youths such as Lydon, music was one way in which class could be encapsulated in a short song accompanied by a backbeat that tapped into the consciousness of record buyers and those attending live performances by the Sex Pistols.

"It's ludicrous that people who are 102 years old should pass judgement"

On the day of the concert the councillors waited two hours for the group to perform. Contrary to the pleas of Walker, five Labour councillors attended, along with five Conservatives. The road crew had already set-up the instruments and the scene was set.

The Sex Pistols issued a statement that they would only be judged by those who wanted to attend the official concert and not by people ‘unfamiliar with their music'. Bernie Rhodes, manager of the Clash, said ‘that we don't agree to the terms we have to perform under.

It's ludicrous that people who are 102 years old should pass judgement'.°! The event was now turned into a circus with the venue besieged by over 40 journalists who were awaiting a verdict. Councillor Shepley eventually read out a prepared statement in front of the group's equipment claiming that the committee ‘had bent over backwards to accommodate them' but had decided that their non-attendance at the audition meant that they would not be allowed to perform."

The Damned, damned

The Derby debacle had also caused conflict amongst the groups that were accompanying the Sex Pistols on the tour. McLaren had decided that all the performers should refuse to appear in front of the councillors.

One of the supporting acts, the Damned, broke ranks and agreed to play. Glen Matlock, bass player with the Sex Pistols, returned to the subject of the Derby debacle in his autobiography and claimed that the decision was based on ‘narrow-minded, pig ignorant, provincial censorship'.

The reaction of the Derby councillors indicates the way in which local authorities outside of the capital were unwilling to accept metropolitan influences in their districts that they viewed as damaging to the ‘morality' of the local population." (more...)