Held with a similar reverence to The Beatles’ 1964 performance on the Ed Sullivan Show and Bob Dylan’s infamous set at Newport Folk Festival in 1965, the Sex Pistols 1976 concerts in Manchester are widely regarded as some of music’s most influential happenings. Playing to a modest crowd of approximately 40 people at the city’s Lesser Free Trade Hall, the fervent four-piece omitted seismic shock waves, catalysing the birth of the UK punk scene. With the concerts approaching their fiftieth anniversary, the music industry is still reeling from the shock of those nights in the North.
In February 1976, Neil Spencer of NME penned the first review of the Sex Pistols under the rather apt title, ‘Don’t Look Over Your Shoulder, But The Sex Pistols Are Coming’. The review struck a chord with two Bolton students, who, inspired by the band’s tales of riotous chaos, promptly hired a car and headed to the capital, with the Sex Pistols in their sights.After a weekend spent watching two of the Pistols’ dates, Howard Trafford and Pete McNeish plucked up the courage to invite the band to Manchester, vying to have their recently conceived band, Buzzcocks, support the fiendish foursome. It would be the Pistols’ first date outside of London, organised by two students on whom the band’s impact was so profound that it prompted a name change. The pair departed Manchester as Howard Trafford and Pete McNeish but returned, reincarnated, as Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley. Devoto later told author David Nolan that the events “changed my life beyond a whole roomful of shadows of doubt.” It is evident that punk’s arms were extending reach by reach, and were soon to snatch a new audience.
The 4th June 1976 saw the first of the band’s two dates in the Warehouse City. With local, heavy rock band Solstice as support, the Pistols ripped through a fourteen-song set of covers (The Stooges, The Who, Small Faces), alongside original numbers that snarled with a rotten fervour. In spite of the light turnout, those in attendance were electrified by the ferocity of the Pistols. They left, touched by the hands of the punk spirit, clamouring to influence the music scene in their respective ways.
Take local Salford Council clerk Peter Hook, for example. Having been so inspired by the Pistols’ set, he bought a bass guitar the following day. Perhaps the birthplace of the Joy Division basslines of ‘Disorder’ and ‘Transmission’ could be accredited to the Lesser Free Trade Hall, Peter Street, and their godfather, Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock.
Alongside Hook stood fellow Joy Division bandmate Bernard Sumner, a pair who would later go on to form the engineering electronic outfit New Order, only four years later. Already, two of Manchester’s most titanic musical outfits owe their origins to the Sex Pistols’ first Northern night. Also in attendance was a then 17-year-old Morrissey, the “creator of the Manchester sound” Martin Hannett and Salford’s beloved bard, Dr John Cooper Clarke.
Yet, the Pistols’ influence on the developing Manchester scene did not stop there. Upon their return to the city in July of the same year, this time with the Buzzcocks and Slaughter and the Dogs as support, the Pistols touched the hearts and aspirations of a further cohort of punkish provocateurs.
Night two saw the soon-to-be totemic frontman of Joy Division, Ian Curtis, and the sardonic Mark E. Smith of The Fall, bear witness to the first live delivery of ‘Anarchy In the U.K’. Also in attendance was Alan McGee, founder of Creation Records, and Tony Wilson, the latter founder of Factory Records, runner of the Hacienda nightclub and bestower of Manchester’s omnipresent yellow and black colour scheme. Of the evening, Wilson later remarked: “The people who were there were just sitting, sitting in these chairs just... gobsmacked. I became involved and thought it was a good idea.”
It was this wonder, or rather shock, that sowed the creative seeds for a northern musical revolution. The Lesser Free Trade Hall played host to the nuclear explosion that proved that you do not need technical skill to form a band. In 1976, the Sex Pistols brought with them an attitude so contagious that it helped to make Manchester one of the UK’s most revered music cities.
In 2026, blossoming bands still cite Buzzcocks, Magazine, Joy Division, New Order, The Fall and The Smiths as being key influences. However, it must be acknowledged that their heroes’ own golden origins began on Peter Street, Manchester, some fifty years ago.
Elizabeth Guest
Image: 'Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols' Official Album Cover
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