“Call for boycott” – Councillors and churches force Pistols out of Merseyside
In Liverpool, the Anarchy Tour collapsed under civic and religious pressure. The Liverpool Echo first announced the Sex Pistols would play Liverpool Stadium, only for a spokesman to later declare: “The publicity they generate does not persuade me to allow them here. These Sex Pistols advocate anarchy and we don’t want to take the risk.” Councillor Doreen Ames urged a boycott, warning, “Let’s show the rest of the country Liverpool is too good for this sort of rubbish.”
The band tried to shift the show to the legendary Cavern Club, but its owner Roy Adams admitted he had faced “enormous pressure” to cancel. Within days, both venues were gone and the city’s leaders were boasting they had kept punk out.
The Pistols bristled. Manager Mike McLaren insisted, “We aren’t going to tone down our act one little bit. There won’t be any compromises in Liverpool—that’s a promise.” Asked if that meant obscenities, he retorted: “Life includes obscenities. Our act reflects life.”
Promoters Ken Testi and Roger Eagle briefly booked the band into their Matthew Street club Eric’s, hoping to fill it with a thousand punters, but protests from the Catholic Church and the Church of England framed it as exploitation and sensationalism.
Father Patrick Harnett called it “sad that commercial interests are using this for financial gain.”
In the end, Liverpool never saw the Pistols that December; the tour moved on, leaving behind headlines of bans, boycotts, and empty promises in the city that once birthed Beatlemania.
Tickets, Posters, Adverts
Posters
Below right - hi-res image
Lot # 592 : SEX PISTOLS, THE - Anarchy in the UK Tour Poster This lot will be auctioned on Friday, November 4th 2024. propstoreauction.com/search?
A rare original concert poster promoting the Sex Pistols' 1976 Anarchy in the UK tour. The 19-date tour was a pivotal moment in punk music history, as local authorities and organisers cancelled the majority of the shows following the public and media outrage at the band's infamous appearance on the television show Today with Bill Grundy.
The black poster features striking pink text, and includes the names of support acts The Damned, The Clash and Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, all printed above a list of locations and dates throughout December 1976. The poster exhibits creasing, minor paper damage - notably on the word "Anarchy" - and a small tear at the top edge.
This lot comes from the personal collection of Chris Hewitt, noted audio archaeologist and author of several books on vintage sound equipment. A letter from him is included. Dimensions: 73 cm x 50 cm (28 3/4" x 19 3/4")
SEX PISTOLS, the Punk Rock group whose four-letter performance on television caused uproar with viewers and television authorities, will appear at the Liverpool Stadium a week tomorrow...
SEX PISTOLS, the Punk Rock group whose four-letter performance on television caused uproar with viewers and television authorities, will appear at the Liverpool Stadium a week to-morrow.
The performance is part of their " Anarchy in the U.K." tour.
But group leader Johnny Rotten claimed: " There will be no trouble." Speaking from London. he said: " This talk of violence is exaggerated.
"When we get on stage. we just give it all we have got. Sometimes things happen which we really are not responsible for. But I can tell you there should be no trouble at the Stadium."
Thames Television has now suspended Bill Grundy. who presented the Today programme which featured the group.
An outraged Liverpool councillor to-day called for a rock group Sex Pistols who vow to sidestep a ban on their city concert...
CALL FOR BOYCOTT ON SEX PISTOLS
By Nick Skidmore
An outraged Liverpool councillor to-day called for a rock group Sex Pistols who vow to sidestep a ban on their city concert.
Councillor Mrs. Doreen Ames plans to demonstrate outside the club where they hope to play in a bid to dissuade youngsters from seeing the group. "Let's show the rest of the country Liverpool is too good for this sort of rubbish. We don't want them here," she said.
The group - who incensed audiences by swearing on the Thames TV programme Today - heard last night their planned show at Liverpool Stadium had been cancelled. Stadium spokesman said: "The publicity - they 'generate does not persuade me to allow them here. Last year the concert hall was wrecked by pop fans. These Sex Pistols advocate anarchy and we don't want to take the risk"
Instead, the group hope to stage the concert at a city club. Their manager, Mike McLaren, said: "We aren't going to tone down our act one little bit. There won't be any compromises in Liverpool—that's a promise."
Asked if this meant the concert would include obscenities, he replied: "Life includes obscenities. Our act reflects life."
The concert is out of the jurisdiction of the city council's licensing committee, which Councillor Mrs. Jones is a member.
But she said: "We should be able to ban this just as we would a smutty film. This is just the sort of thing from which the public needs to be protected."
Link: British Newspaper Library ("Sex PIstols", 'Liverpool"
ACTING Chairman of Liverpool Education Committee Councillor Geoff Walsh has refused to intervene in a bid to stop punk rock group Sex Pistols appearing at a Liverpool club. He told Councillor Chris Hallows (C), who had called for a ban on the group: "I would be loathe to condemn any performers without first having heard their performance."
Runcorn Weekly News –– Thursday 9 December 1976, PDF
TV ROW GROUP BOOKED FOR CITY
Two Liverpool promoters are preparing to gross £1,250 after hurriedly switching venues to insure the arrival of punk rock's latest horror show, the Sex Pistols, in Liverpool, on Saturday night....
TV ROW GROUP BOOKED FOR CITY
Two Liverpool promoters are preparing to gross £1,250 after hurriedly switching venues to insure the arrival of punk rock's latest horror show, the Sex Pistols, in Liverpool, on Saturday night.
Unruffled by a sudden Stadium ban on the Pistols, promoters Ken Testi and Roger Eagle made sure the show would go on by booking the group into their own Matthew Street club Eric's.
By filling the club with 1,000 fans paying £1.25 a time the two promoters look set to gross £1,250 for a forty minute performance from the Pistols. There are three supporting groups on the bill.
OUTCRY
In the wake of the public outcry which followed the group's foul-mouthed appearance on a television chat show Testi denied he was cashing in on publicity.
He admitted it might have had some effects on ticket sales which were going well, but said: "We booked the Sex Pistols before they became well known."
Testi said he would sell 700 advance tickets and "after seeing how things go" would allow up to 1,000 fans into the club.
"The boys have played Liverpool before, about six weeks ago, and they have quite a sizeable local following," said Testi."
There was no trouble at all at their last concert though we will be taking one or two extra precautions this time." There was a strong local reaction to the Pistol's visit from both the Catholic Church and the Church of England.
The Director of the Catholic Youth Services, Father Patrick Harnett, said: "It is sad that we have commercial interests using this sensationalism for their own interests for financial gain."
A spokesman for the Church of England said the whole thing was a pure publicity stunt. "I am a keen rock fan but the more we talk about it the more we are just playing into their hands," said the spokesman.
Ironically the birth of the latest teenage craze could arise from the grave of the Beatles stomping ground the Cavern Club.
CLOSED
Closed down this year the Cavern is now christened the Revolution and on one or two nights a week it comes under the control of Testi and Eagle who have rechristened the club as Eric's.
But despite Testi's claims of a sizeable Merseyside following for the group their new record Anarchy in the U.K. has not sold many extra copies according to a spokesman for a leading Liverpool record shop.
In their first appearance following their T.V. row a venue in the Students Hall in Les, the group found themselves playing to a half filled house. Many of the audience walked out half way through the "concert" stating that the group were just "plain bad" and not at all musical.
One student described the group as "absolutely nothing."
PUNK rock group, the Sex Pistuls, have had their planned concert in Liverpool Cavern Club, on Sunday. cancelled because of enormous pressure on the club owner, Mr. Roy Adams, to cancel the show.
Book: Peter Smith, Sex Pistols: The Pride of Punk Google books, page 57
A gig was scheduled to take place at Liverpool Stadium for December 11
[extract]"The situation continued throughout December. The bands would travel to the next concert, only to find that it was canceled. A gig was scheduled to take place at Liverpool Stadium for December 11 and was hastily rearranged for the famous Cavern Club, where The Beatles started their career. The Liverpool Echo of December 7, 1976, re- ported under the headline "Call for boycott on Sex Pistols":
An outraged Liverpool councillor today called for a boycott on punk rock group Sex Pistols—who vow to sidestep a ban on their city concert. Councillor Doreen Jones plans to demonstrate outside the club where they hope to play in a bid to dissuade youngsters from seeing the group. "Let's show the rest of the country Liverpool is too good for this sort of rubbish. We don't want them here," she said. The group—who incensed audiences by swearing on the Thames TV program Today—heard last night their planned show at Liverpool Stadium had been canceled. A Stadium spokesman said, "The pub- licity they generate does not persuade me to allow them here. These Sex Pistols advocate Anarchy and we don't want to take the risk." Instead the group hope to stage the concert at a city club. Their manager, Mike [sic] McLaren said: "We aren't going to tone down our act one little bit. There won't be any compromises in Liver- pool—that's a promise." Asked if this meant the concert would in- clude obscenities, he replied: "Life includes obscenities. Our act re- flects life."
However, the concert at the Cavern Club was also canceled and the tour did not get to play in Liverpool."
Book: K. Gildart, Images of England Through Popular Music: Class, Youth and Rock 'n' Roll ... Google books
"McLaren describing the group as ‘working class spivs, dole-queue kids'"
[extract] "The Liverpool Daily Post also gave considerable space to the Sex Pistols. The front page of 3 December again quoted McLaren describing the group as ‘working class spivs, dole-queue kids'."! The Sex Pistols were due to play the Liverpool Stadium on 11 December.
There was an immediate response from the city's religious representatives. The Reverend Donald Gray expressed wolries concerning the political message that the group seemed to be promoting. He felt that far from liberating the youth of the nation ‘anarchy doesn't give freedoms, it takes them away'.'
Councillor Doreen Jones made a direct appeal to her local constituents: ‘Let's show the rest of the country Liverpool is too good for this sort of rubbish'.'*?
The venue's managers buckled under pressure and decided to cancel the event.'* An attempt to perform a replacement concert at the famous Cavern Club also ended in failure."
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PAGE 3 - The fallout, Tour collapses RevisedDates following the Grundy outrage
Anarchy Tour Adverts, before and after The fallout from Bill Grundy show
Feature Magazines Books (Anarchy Tour)
PAGE 3 - The fallout, Tour collapses RevisedDates following the Grundy outrage
Anarchy Tour Adverts, before and after The fallout from Bill Grundy show
Feature Magazines Books (Anarchy Tour)
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