Ticket

"and now we'd like to sing about"

Protex Blue is completely re-worked into a new song, seemingly called "Big Brother" or "Big Brother Is Watching You"

The music is the same, but the lyrics (sung mostly by Joe) are completely different. He even introduces the song with "and now we'd like to sing about... big brother arrived yesterday"

By the time of the next gig recording (Harlesden March 3 1977) it has reverted back to Protex Blue.

Two amazing nights at the Circus

shay rowan - @shayster57 - 14 Oct 2019

Two amazing nights at the Circus although that second one got a bit 'tasty' afterwards! 

The Clash were once the only band that mattered

Before they rocked The Casbah, the Clash staked out ground as ‘the only band that matters'

GOLMINE Magazine
Patrick Prince
Updated:Aug 21, 2020
Original:Sep 7, 2010

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Strummer later recalled that a Dec. 9 show at the Electric Circus in Manchester was the moment he knew the group would make it. - We were better than The Pistols, - he told Salewicz. "They had a really hard time following us. We blew them off the stage." That Strummer had felt just as blown away when he first saw The Pistols a mere eight months previously says much about his growing confidence.

The Clash | Faceboook

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TO TURN up to a Sex Pistols' show nowadays is to make a statement to the world that you care about rock 'n' roll and don't give a Bill Grundy what the yellow press thinks.

(Read full the article...)

Guardian - A northern soul

Paul Morley
Sun 21 May 2006

Online or archived PDF

Thirty years ago, the Manchester music scene was changed for ever. Paul Morley revisits the city of his youth and recalls the sights and eviscerating sounds that transformed the lives of a generation

Book: Sex Pistols: The Pride of Punk

By Peter Smith

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[more] ... "Pete Shelley remembers the gig fondly: "I thought we played really well. It was the last time we ever played with the Pistols and the last time I saw them play. The Electric Circus had previously been a heavy metal club, but the Anarchy gig turned it round and started punk in Manchester" (Black 1996).

Among the audience were members of the Stiff Kittens, soon to become Joy Division, and then New Order. Steven Morrissey, soon to be of The Smiths, was also there, largely to see the Heartbreakers, as he had been a big fan of the New York Dolls and used to run their UK fan club.

He wrote a letter about the concert to Melody Maker (December 11, 1976): "The likes of the Sex Pistols have yet to prove that they are only worthy of a mention in a publication dealing solely with fashion; and if the music they deliver live is anything to go by, I think that their audacious lyrics and discordant music will not hold their heads above water when their followers tire of torn jumpers and safety pins."

"It was easily the most terrifying concert I've ever been to," remembers Frank Brunger (Black 1996). "There was a violent element in the crowd and the glasses and bottles soon started flying."

This was becoming more and more frequent at punk gigs, as local gangs used the con- cert as an excuse for violence.

Peter Hook remembers the second night at the Electric Circus as "just a riot. There were so many football [soccer] fans and lunatics throwing bottles from the top of the flats. It was really heavy, a horrible night. Punk had been completely underground until Grundy. After that, it was completely over the top. There were so many of the punks getting battered" (Lloyd 2016)."

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

By K. Gildart

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(more..) [extract] "Pistols had already played two shows at the city's Free Trade Hall on 4 June and 20 July. The Palace Theatre and the Free Trade Hall unsurprisingly declined the invitation of further concerts in light of the adverse publicity.

The manger of the latter, Ron O' Neil claimed that during the group's previous appearance ‘they started arguments with the audience and the language was a bit strong'. Paul Galsworthy of the Palace told the paper that he had ‘heard that they were very rough and the lowest type of group'. The request to perform was duly rejected.

The Electric Circus was a privately owned former cinema in Collyhurst, north Manchester. The location perfectly suited the ‘rough music' and performance of the Sex Pistols. By the mid- 1970s, Collyhurst was becoming a ‘problem area' with dilapidated housing stock, petty crime, unemployment and youth delinquency.

The promoters had used the rejection from other venues to publicise the show; ‘Banned from the Palace, Banned from the Free Trade Hall'. The group had already been asked to leave the city's prestigious Midland Hotel the day before the show.

The manager, Harry Berry, changed his mind on the booking once he realised who they were.°* They were then refused accommodation at the Belgrade Hotel in Stockport, eventually securing rooms at the Arosa in Fallowfield.

They were also ejected from these premises when the manager, Mohammed Anwar, claimed that they ‘started using the filthiest language, ran riot and upset other guests'.

The show went ahead with the press reporting that the 500 people in attendance faced an immediate slew of obscenities. In preparation for any kind of violence, the press claimed that ‘local detectives had been dispatched in ‘pop gear' to mix with crowd while senior uniformed officers kept vigil from the back of the hall'.

Punk music had created divisions amongst Manchester's youth, which was articulated along lines of social class. Howard Paul, a public school boy from Cheshire, was featured in the Manchester Evening News castigating the Sex Pistols."

In response, he had formed a band with ex-grammar and public schools boys with the name Contempt; a reference to what he felt for this new form of music. Paul claimed that the Sex Pistols were taking advantage of a section of gullible youth: ‘They are just playing on the frustrations of young kids who have no jobs and no prospects.'

John Scott said that he was sickened by the whole spectacle of punk rock. He felt the Sex Pistols were deliberately stirring up trouble and violence for publicity purposes. In contrast, Stephen Morrissey, a 17-year-old working-class music fan from Stretford, later to lead another influential group, the Smiths, penned a letter to the Manchester Evening News claiming that the Sex Pistols were ‘speaking for the youth today'.

Their manager, Malcolm McLaren, told reporters that the Sex Pistols ‘dress loudly and they are loud mouthed like all young kids in a similar predicament'."