Anarchy in Rochdale?
IT was the Sex Pistols gig that never was.
Forty years ago the notorious punk band were booked to play Champness Hall in Rochdale.
Their seminal performance at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester the previous year, was said to have inspired the likes of Joy Division, Buzzcocks and The Smiths, but the cancelled Rochdale gig would point to the band’s demise.
Amid the hysteria surrounding the Pistols, threats of court action – and a moral panic from Rochdale’s Methodist leaders, who said the gig was an ‘insult to decent folk’ – councillors in the town banned Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, Paul Cook and Steve Jones from performing.
The Champness Hall gig on December 22, 1977, was part of an eight-date mini-tour scheduled by the Pistols for December 1977.
Initially at least the Rochdale concert was hailed as a ‘big scoop’ for the town.
Tickets were £1.75 and about 250 were snapped up within minutes of going on sale. But the mood was to change when trustees at the Methodist church-owned hall threatened legal action if the show went ahead.
In a statement Rev John Jennings, minister at Champness Hall, said: “We were stunned to learn from the Rochdale Observer that the Sex Pistols were playing in our premises and we knew nothing about it.
“The lease through which the borough use our main hall clearly states that nothing will be presented by the borough which is ‘offensive, noisy or immoral.’
“We regard this booking as an insult to Methodism and an insult to decent folk in the borough.”
Spooked by the controversy on Tuesday, December 13, councillors voted to ban the group from Rochdale. Coun Arthur Cleasby was all for the ban, saying the council official who booked the gig should also be censured. But Coun John Hatton told the committee ‘many young people enjoyed watching the Sex Pistols’ adding: “We cannot be judge and jury on this.”
But their protests fell on deaf ears and the gig was cancelled. The December ‘77 tour was to prove the band’s death knoll.
Of the eight scheduled dates, four were called off due to illness or political pressure.