Sex
Pistols last UK gig location, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
Before the punk wave broke across the country in the
seventies there hadn’t been a rebellious band. Nowadays so many are
anti-mainstream that it's boring. Nobody had seen anything like the Sex Pistols
though. They were like an incendiary comet hitting the country and were responsible
for initiating the punk movement and many musicians for decades to come. Even
though they only lasted for two and a half years and made just one album
they’re still talked about now. Here I am behind an Aldi
store in central Huddersfield where they performed their last ever UK concert
in 1977.
Parking in the centre of Huddersfield isn’t easy
unless you’re shopping so I parked in the Aldi car
park, had a coffee and bought some stuff to justify my stay. I was impressed
when the foreign woman serving observed, “That is not a Huddersfield accent is
it - where are you from?” So young she looked like she should have been at
school rather than deciphering accents. I fed some pigeons and walked down
across to the centre of Huddersfield to have a look at the old listed Co-op
Building which was empty and looking sorry for itself (a local told me it used
to be a nightclub called Heaven And Hell - Heaven upstairs and Hell
downstairs.) Thankfully these listed building can’t be demolished. I crossed the
road to see the white frontage of the old Grand Picture Theatre - another listed
building. In 1977 this was Ivanhoe’s nightclub and on Christmas Day in 1977 the
Sex Pistols played a charity show there to raise money for the families of
striking firemen. You’d think their last public appearance would be at a big
venue in London or Glasgow but oddly it was here in Yorkshire.
It was a busy day - first there was a party in
the afternoon for kids. Johnny Rotten handed out badges, posters and other Sex
Pistols merchandise. Kids and teenagers danced with Sid Vicious on the dance
floor to disco hits by Baccara and Boney M. Later on Johnny Rotten judged a pogo dancing
contest and presented the youngsters with a 6 foot cake. A good-natured chaotic
food fight ensued. This party for young kids seemed odd as the Pistols were
pilloried by the media, excoriated by the Establishment and banned from some council-owned
venues due to their corrosive influence. Yet on a freezing Christmas Day they wanted
to show support for the firemen who’d been on strike for nine weeks and give
their kids a good day.
The party continued through the night and adult
punks showed up for the evening's 70-minute concert. Fans couldn't have known
this was the last time they'd appear on stage in the UK. Just over three weeks
later the band split up. They’d played a chaotic gig at the Winterland
Ballroom in San Francisco and Johnny Rotten left the band. Just over a year
later bass-player Sid Vicious was found dead of a heroin overdose after
murdering his girlfriend Nancy Spungen (nearing her
death his mum confessed she’d deliberately injected her son with pure heroin to
spare him from going to prison.)
Anyway the former cinema I'm stood by was where
the last gig occurred. I took lots of photographs of the building though it's really
just a posh front. If you look at plan views of this place Aldi
have craftily cut right into the building and the former theatre has gone (there's
a tree growing on top.) Even though Ivanhoe's nightclub is long gone the
council had the good sense to keep the facade of a once renown cinema. It opened as
a cinema in 1921 (building cost of £32,000) and closed in 1957. Like so many cinemas
it was turned into a nightclub and eventually became Ivanhoe's in the 70s.
I had one last look about the place (with keen interest
from a woman at the bus stop) and took some footage. You
wouldn’t think this was a site of rock history would you? On the day in 1977 it
cost £1.75 for a ticket to see the Pistols. I wondered how much people would
pay now to see them. I did a salute and left.
There's a documentary about the gig here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNlSNHHmPmE
To some footage please click on the link at the foot of this page.
