Supporting The Sex Pistols

Updated October 2020 - added Out on the Town
updated July 2022 added new advert

No known audio or video

If you know of any recording, please email blackmarketclash

A Pistols recording exists from this gig but the taper only recorded the Pistols and the support slot, Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers.

SEX PISTOLS GET THEIR ORDERS
NO SWEARING IN LEEDS

Yorkshire Evening Post - 6 December 1976

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Posters

Ticket

Leeds Polytechnic

The Leeds Polytechnic, now known as Leeds Beckett University, gained historical significance as the opening venue for the Anarchy Tour on December 6, 1976.

This tour featured influential punk bands such as The Clash, the Sex Pistols, and The Damned, and is considered a pivotal moment in the history of punk music[1][2].

The building, originally constructed to house the educational institution, has a rich history as a center for education and culture in the region.

Leeds Polytechnic, now Leeds Beckett University, was built in the 19th century. The style of the building is characteristic of the architecture of that period, featuring elements of Victorian or Edwardian design, which were prevalent during the time of its construction.

Links:
2. 4 of the Most Iconic Gigs in Leeds History
3. In Pictures: The ‘Anarchy In The U.K. Tour' of 1976
4. Anarchy in the UK: How the Sex Pistols' snarling manifesto changed the face of punk
5. The Fanzine that Documented When Punk Landed in Leeds

PHOTO: Leeds before the gig

Billy Aitken I think, starting at the front, its photographer Ray Stevenson, Jerry Nolan, Billy Rath, Walter Lure (standing), Joe Strummer (standing) maybe Bernie Rhodes sat beyond Joe at the back. Probably Johnny Thunders walking towards the camera. Great, rare shot link

JEERS FOR PUNK GROUP ROCK GROUP AS FANS WALK OUT: HOW THE SEX PISTOLS MISFIRED

Yorkshire Evening Post
7th December 1976

LInk

They're a waste of money LEEDS

Leicester Daily Mercury -
Tuesday 07 December 1976

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The Clash | Facebook

All - The Clash Leeds 1976 on Facebook
The Clash Official Leeds Polytechnic 1976 on Facebook

The Anarchy Tour of 1976 - Flashbak

Webpage or Archive PDF

Out on the Town
Blank Generation out on the Road

NME
11 December 1976

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The politics of boredom, The Clash in Leeds

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The fanzine that documented when punk landed in Leeds

Yorkshire Evening Post

Online or archived PDF

Despite tabloid fury, the gig at Leeds Polytechnic where the Pistols were supported by The Clash and Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers was given the go-ahead.

At that gig there were a lot of punks there but there was not really any trouble. A lot of people got converted that night. Though there were a lot of sound problems it was an exciting gig. Punk had announced itself.î

The first edition of New Pose [Fanzine], in June 1977, carried interviews with The Ramones and Talking Heads, who had played at Leeds Polytechnic a couple of weeks earlier, along with gig review of The Clash and Subway Sect and reviews of new singles by Blondie, Iggy Pop and The Jam.

Punk! On Stage!

Melody Maker?
Date / source unknown

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""Abysmal Performance of Depravity Rock":
The Sex Pistols in Leeds, December 1976"

Posted by LEEDS LIBRARIES on DECEMBER 7, 2016

Secret History of Leeds

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Leeds alumni online, Everybody hold on tight

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This story originally appeared in Leeds magazine. Music writer and former punk, Lucy O'Brien recalls Leeds in the punk and post-punk years.

"Anyone can do that, let's get a band together!'"

"All the Leeds post-punk musicians were inspired by the frenzied gigs they saw in Leeds. "I remember seeing the Anarchy in the UK tour at the Poly with the Clash and the Sex Pistols, thinking "I can do that. Anyone can do that. Right, let's get a band together!'" recalls Kevin Lycett, one of the founding members of the Mekons."

No Machos or Pop Stars

Published by Duke University Press 2022

Gavin Butt tells the story of the post-punk scene in the northern English city of Leeds, showing how bands ranging from Gang of Four, Soft Cell, and Delta 5 to Mekons, Scritti Politti, and Fad Gadget drew on their university art school education to push the boundaries of pop music.

Online

On December 6, 1976, punk came to Leeds in the shape ofthe Anarchy in the UK tour. The gig, at the Polytechnic Assembly Hall, was the first to go ahead as the organiz-ers had planned. The Sex Pistols' expletive-ridden appear-ance on Thames Television's Today program, less than a week earlier, had created a storm of outrage in the national media, expressed most famously by the Daily Mirror's front-page December 2 splash "The Filth and the Fury!".

Pressured by such a vivid show of establishment indignation, university officials and councillors up and down the country moved quickly, banning the group from regional stages on the grounds that their would-be degeneracy, and sudden fame, might make up a potent enough cocktail to spark violent unrest among disaffected British youth. Prior dates in Norwich, Newcastle, and Derby had all been canceled on this pretext.

"society had lost its moral values."

But in Leeds, the gig had been booked by the student union, and in this town at least, the higher-ups refused to intervene. City councillors not happy with this said letting the gig go ahead showed "society had lost its moral values." But their sounding off was to no avail. In the end, the Leeds concert was one of only three of the original twenty dates to play as planned, along with those in Manchester and Plymouth.

The event offered four bands on one bill—with the Damned, the Clash, andJohnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers alongside the Sex Pistols—all ...(more) (need to buy the book!)

Book: Sex Pistols: The Pride of Punk

By Peter Smith who was at Leeds Polytechnic, where "a sell-out crowd gathered to witness.."

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Blackmarketclash | Leave a comment

BBC - The boy looked at Johnny

Memories by David Whittaker

Online or archived PDF

When the Sex Pistols, Clash, Damned and Heartbreakers played Leeds Polytechnic on December 6 1976 David Whittaker was in the audience.

The performance was part of the ill-fated Anarchy in the UK tour.

My stand-out concert of all time was the Clash gig, in May 1982 at Leeds University, I've kept the ticket all this time, it cost £3.50.

The Sex Pistols - The boy looked at Johnny
Memories by David Whittaker

"I saw a guy with green hair, a loud-mouthed Londoner who, was there as much to be seen as to see. I also remember Johnny Rotten, in an oversized red waistcoat and oversized, baggy black trousers, aiming negative remarks towards some local Leeds MP who had tried to ban the show."

"Johnny Thunders of the Heartbreakers (ex-New York Dolls) stood next to me and my two mates, glaring at us while the Pistols were playing. As soon as the two of us bumped eyes he looked away. Aggressively, I asked him 'Who are you f****** looking at?' I was young and full of false bravado."

"When Thunders was interviewed in Sounds magazine a while later, he described the fans in Leeds as 'they look as though if you bump eyes with them, as though they wouldn't hesitate to put a knife in you'. To this day, I hope he didn't mean me!"

"The show did one thing for me, introduced me to The Clash, a love affair that has lasted to this very day."

"I remember Captain Sensible of the Damned signing an autograph for a girl, when he had done it and left, I asked the girl if I could see it, she obliged. It read, 'I'm not signing my f******* name on this'. The show did one thing for me, introduced me to The Clash, a love affair that has lasted to this very day."

When the Sex Pistols, Clash, Damned and Heartbreakers played Leeds Polytechnic on December 6 1976 David Whittaker was in the audience. The performance was part of the ill-fated Anarchy in the UK tour.

"I later met Paul Simonon and Mick Jones, although, I never met Joe Strummer, even after a Mescaleros gig at the (then) Leeds Town & Country. I stood outside in the rain waiting to meet Joe, but I should have waited a little longer, now I will never meet him. RIP Joe."

"My stand-out concert of all time was the Clash gig, in May 1982 at Leeds University, I've kept the ticket all this time, it cost £3.50. The more you play the Clash's music the more it grows on you, it will stay with me forever. I've grown up with the Clash's music and other classic punk bands - it's a hard act to follow. There are no good bands around anymore, many younger people are into dance music and it just doesn't have the passion of live music."

David Whittaker

PHOTOS

In Pictures: The ‘Anarchy In The U.K. Tour' of 1976

Webpage or Archive PDF

Getty Images, Sex Pistols at Leeds

Link

British punk rock band The Sex Pistols perform live on stage at Leeds Polytechnic during their 'Anarchy Tour', Leeds, UK, 6th December 1976.

If you know of any recording, please email blackmarketclash