Supporting The Sex Pistols

Sex Pistols: The Pride of Punk - By Peter Smith

"The first three gigs were scheduled for the University of East Anglia Students’ Union, Norwich (December 3, 1976), the Kings Hall, Derby (the gig that DJ John Peel turned up to on December 4, 1976), and the City Hall, Newcastle, on December 5, 1976 (the concert that my friends and I had tickets for). All these concerts were canceled. The students at the University of East Anglia held a sit-in protest, to no avail. The Pistols’ tour bus headed straight for Derby, where the bands stayed in the Crest Hotel and were met by a group of reporters who would follow them on the tour. It was a cold winter; not the weather to be traveling around the country on a bus. The economic climate also remained poor, with inflation at 16 percent, and the government had just negotiated a £2.3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

In Derby, the local council considered allowing the bands to per- form, but only if the Sex Pistols first auditioned for local councillors. The bands refused, although The Damned suggested that they would be willing to do so, which annoyed McLaren and the others. The Damned played one gig and were then sacked from the tour. Newcastle Councillor Arthur Stabler explained that the City Hall gig was canceled “in the interests of protecting the children” (bombedoutpunk website) and so the tour set off for Leeds."

Images of England Through Popular Music: Class, Youth and Rock 'n' Roll ... - By K. Gildart

[extract] "The first stop on the Anarchy Tour was due to take place in the main hall of the University of East Anglia (UEA) on Friday 3 December. Along with the Sex Pistols, other groups sharing the bill were the Clash, the Damned and the Heartbreakers. In response to the Grundy show the Norwich local press bombarded the UEA with questions as to whether the concert would go ahead. The local president of the National Union of Students (NUS), Aidan Lines, said that he wanted the concert to be cancelled, but he was prevented from doing so because of the financial implications. The union had paid the group £750 and a number of tickets had been sold in advance. Nonetheless, they had written into the contract a NUS stipulation that the group would use no fascist insignia on stage and no fascist lyrics in their songs.?” This had raised concerns because one of the group’s entourage, Siouxsie Sioux, had worn a Nazi armband during the Grundy interview. Moreover, it was in a context where rock performers were toying with far-right imagery and occasionally supporting anti-immigration statements; most notably David Bowie’s alleged Nazi salute at Victoria Station in May and Eric Clapton’s vocal support for Enoch Powell during a concert at the Birmingham Odeon in August.*® The Sex Pistols were averse to fascist politics. The lyrics of their songs did not contain any racist rhetoric and there is no evidence that they made any racist comments during performances. Nonetheless, it was clear that the UEA NUS were suspicious of the Sex Pistols in that they did not seem to fit the archetype of progressive peaceful middle-class groups that personified the student music scene in 1976.

The political pressure and the hysteria of the press soon became too much for the university and the concert was cancelled. Although the union had been uneasy about the event, the cancellation came from an executive decision by the Vice- Chancellor of the university Frank Thistlethwaite. He felt that the concert could have led to violence. This created a rift between the university authorities and the NUS. The NUS publicity officer Sally Partington informed the Eastern Evening News that ‘we wish to make it known that we are disgusted with the manner in which the Vice Chancellor’s decision was taken’.°? She felt that the union had been railroaded into agreeing to the cancellation. The executive decision had been taken at the end of a hastily convened meeting. The two NUS representatives had tried in vain to put their position across, but the university council had been swayed by the ‘moral panic’ that was now in place. The conservative members of the university council were no doubt keen to avoid being labelled with the tag of allowing the Sex Pistols to play. This exposed the fragility of the consensus that existed between the university and the student body and how the culture of liberalism on the campus owed more to rhetoric than reality. University administrators were comfortable with a woolly notion of freedom of expression, but the Sex Pistols were clearly an affront to the middle-class sensibilities of academics and a number of students.

The decision created conflict on the campus and students were disgruntled by the fact that their views had been disregarded. (...more)

The Anarchy Tour
By Mick O'Shea

[extract] The Anarchy tour was indeed in a state of flux. By midday Friday, instead of ferrying the Sex Pistols, The Heartbreakers, The Clash and their retinues to Norwich’s East Anglia University for the opening show of the tour, the coach was still standing idle at the kerb on Denmark Street. While the beleaguered Sophie fielded calls from indignant council officials and anxious promoters over at Dryden Chambers, an equally irate Malcolm — sporting a silver-flecked fur coat that he’d purchased specially for the tour — was relating the constantly changing situation to the bemused musicians. He’d just spent the last half-hour or so cooped up in the public phone box outside St. Giles’ Church on nearby St. Martin’s Lane remonstrating with the

East Anglia University’s Vice-Chancellor, Frank Thistlewaite, over the latter’s decision to cancel the show.

Malcolm’s vexation didn’t stem from the cancellation itself, but rather Thistlewaite’s insistence that he’d reached his decision not because of what had occurred on the Today show per se, but rather over fears that the furore now surrounding the Sex Pistols meant that he was no longer fully satisfied that the concert could proceed peacefully. It seemed the eleventh-hour cancellation had resulted in a sizeable contingent of the university’s students threatening to Stage a sit-in protest. However, Thistlewaite had assured Malcolm that the demonstration wouldn’t be bringing about a reversal in his decision.

The front page of that evening’s edition of the Eastern Evening News carried a banner headline: ‘UEA Shoots Down Sex Pistols Concert’ and reported that the university’s powers-that-be had acted over concerns for campus safety. The university’s Information Officer, Frank Albrighton, said that the decision had been taken because the university was “responsible for the safety and security of persons and property on the campus”, and added that the concert wasn’t going to happen so there was little point in anyone turning up. However, the cancellation meant there was a distinct possibility that the Student Union would still have to pay the agreed £750 fee. The previous day, the union’s president, Aiden Lines, had gone on record saying that he’d wanted to cancel the concert, but that doing so would cripple the Student Union financially. While Lines was conveniently unavailable for comment, the Student Union’s social secretary, Paul Heck, having made mention of the Union’s forlom security measures which included speaking with Norwich Police, tripling their own security staff, as well as closing the concert hall bar to prevent the risk of glasses being thrown, stated: “I agree there was a risk, but I don’t think it’s as great as it’s made out to be. I don’t know what he [Lines] will do about the money if we have to pay it. We hope the university will pay a fair bit since they cancelled it, but I doubt they will.”

Meanwhile, Sally Partington, the Student Union’s Publicity Officer, used the newspaper to issue a formal apology on its behalf to those left disappointed by the university’s decision: “We wish to make it known that we are disgusted with the manner in which the Vice-Chancellor’s decision was taken. It was the result of an impromptu and ill-informed meeting with two representatives of the union who did their best to put the union’s point of view to no avail. We feel that the wishes of the union and the students here have been totally disregarded, and we wish to apologise to all those who have bought tickets and will be disappointed — particularly those from Norwich and the surrounding area.” ... link

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A collection of articles, interviews, reviews, posters, tour dates from the ill feted Anarchy Tour. Articles cover December and the Tour.

If you know of any articles or references for this particular gig, anything that is missing, please do let us know.

Newspaper clipping:
UAE shoots down Sex Pistols concert

Local advert in
The Eastern Evening News Sat 27th Nov

Blll Grundy Interview

BBC TV Look North look back
Youtube
BBC Look North 30th Anniversary of Punk/Anarchy Tour at Cleethorpes Winter Gardens. Contains interview with Captain Sensible. TX 14th Dec. 2006

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