MILESTONES IN POP

The Sex Pistols at Manchester Free Trade Hall, June 4, 1976

Ask anyone who's anyone in pop music about the Sex Pistols' famous gig at Manchester's Free Trade Hall in June 1976 and chances are they'll claim to have been there. The gig was instrumental in sowing the first seeds of a punk scene outside London and galvanised many local people into forming their own bands, most notably the Buzzcocks, Joy Division and Gerry and the Pacemakers. But who actually witnessed this historic performance?
Using a new system called Stainalysis®, pop historians have recovered minute traces of sweat, urine and gob left on the floor of the Free Trade Hall from that fateful night. Running the evidence through Scotland Yard's database of celebrity DNA yields some quite startling results. So here for the first time is the definitive list of the gig's attendees, together with what few facts are known about their reasons for being there.
KEY TO WHO'S WHO:

Stage:

A) Johnny Rotten. The small puddle beside him is a bit of sick he did prior to singing the opening number. Most scientists agree he had been eating a Twix.

B) Steve Jones

C) Glen Matlock

D) Huw Edwards (left soon afterwards to become a newsreader, replaced by Paul Cook)


Audience:

1) Frank Sinatra. Ol' Blue Eyes had heard there was a new musical phenomenon happening over the Pond and flew over to check it out for himself. He left after two songs, shaking his head and muttering, "A cat's gotta have rocks in his head to enjoy this load of baloney."

2) Margaret Thatcher. Recently elected Leader of the Conservative Party, Maggie was impressed by the Pistols' verve and took great inspiration from their iconoclastic ways. She later wrote in The Downing Street Years "…what the Pistols did to harmony, I was to do to the British economy."

3) Pele. The Brazilian football hero killed at little time at the gig before going on to the Embassy Club to see Bernard Manning perform.

4) A dragonfly. Species Ordonta. Later that night the excited insect took news of the amazing new band to its shocked brothers and sisters on the banks of the River Irwell.

5) The Ghost of Isambard King Brunel. Self-explanatory.

6) Ken Barlow. The Coronation Street resident soon pogoed his way to the front and began violently slam-dancing into his fellow gig-goers.

7) E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. This was the big-hearted alien botanist's first trip to Earth. He had wandered into the hall by accident, looking for some petunias. It is thought the loud, angry music frightened him away, but not before he tried to 'cure' Johnny Rotten's safety pinned ear with his magic lighty-up finger.

8) Jesus Christ. Spiritual leader and prophet, he would later go on to form his own band, Jesus and the Christones. Jesus had visited the Free Trade Hall a decade earlier when he had shouted the word Judas at Bob Dylan, mistaking him for an old friend.

9) Eric Morecambe &…

10) Ernie Wise. The duo had been toying with the idea of embracing a teenage subculture with a view to widening their huge appeal still further. They rejected punk as ultimately too nihilistic and became New Romantics in 1982.

11) Queen Elizabeth II. Hung around many early Pistols gigs trying to become mates with the band. They eventually wrote a song about her.

12) Joyce Falkirk. Cleaner. Waited at the back for the gig to finish so she could mop up the broken glass, crushed crisps and spit.








WINDYPOPS SAYS: Aren't Jesus and the Christones due for a comeback?







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