Supporting The Sex Pistols

Anarchy on the River Tay - How a cancelled Sex Pistols gig in Dundee changed music history forever

By Graeme Strachan
3 March 2018

Online or archived PDF

The Caird Hall date became the gig that never was when Queen pulled out of making an appearance on Thames Today on December 1, which was the London evening TV show presented by Bill Grundy.

Their plugger suggested the Pistols as a substitute on the tea time show.

McLaren thought the publicity generated by live TV was too good to turn down and a limousine was duly sent for the band and the Caird Hall gig was hastily rescheduled for later in December.

The band appeared live on Grundy's show and the infamous performance made front page headlines the next day.

Former Dundee DJ Pat Kelly said the story of punk might have been completely different had the band played their Caird Hall show as planned.

"Dundee Corporation was frightened that the Caird Hall would not be in one piece if they allowed them to perform the rescheduled date.

"So they dutifully cancelled their booking."

Dundee, the Sex Pistols and the Filth and the Fury.

The Barley Boat
11 October 2016;
John Robertson

Link

The story in Dundee goes that the band were due to play at the Caird Hall that same night and that they had cancelled the gig in order to appear on TV. There are easily obtained facsimile posters for sale that seem to confirm that this was indeed the case. Evidence elsewhere suggests otherwise though.

Dundee Tech College Students Union have their own webpage with lots of details about the venue.

Link

DJ Brian Wilson remembers..."Norrie McGrath was Vice President of Entertainments for the year - April '77 to the end of the 1978 academic session. 

Norrie was the guy who had a clear-out of old paperwork from the office when he took over in April '77 and said I could have anything I wanted before it was consigned to the bin. Which is why, among my cherished possessions is the receipt for the Sex Pistols gig in October '76 , the contract, signed by Malcolm MacLaren, for the aborted Caird Hall gig, which would have featured The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned and Johnny Thunder and The Heartbreakers.

Included are the letters from the council about the gig but I didn't get the final one. However, Iain Flett at the council's archive department was able to send me a scan of the final letter, which basically said that the decision was deferred until January so the Union could present supporting evidence. Obviously, the deferment killed off the concert!

Also grabbed a copy of "Circuit", which was the magazine for entertainments promoters at the time. 

Below is a wee reminder of the doomed Sex Pistols gig at the Caird Hall, and the muddle organising it. The poster has the wrong support acts for 1st December. It should have been The Ramones, Talking Heads and Chris Spedding & The Vibrators.

The revamped tour dates (Dundee 16th December) with revamped support acts, crop up on the official tour poster. Tickets were available from both Caird Hall and Tech College.

Posters

Dundee Caird Hall