10 Greatest Music Gigs You Wish You Could Have Been At
2. Sex Pistols - Lesser Free Trade Hall - Manchester
There are several contenders for the 'I wish I was there' accolade in the Pistols annals, notably the Screen On The Green and 100 Club dates in 1976, but the one that has been mythologised more than any other was their first visit to Manchester in 1976.
If you believe the story of everybody who claims to have been there, there'd be enough punters to fill Wembley - in actuality there were no more than 50 people in attendance. The other myth is that every one of them went on to form a major band. There is some truth to that - Joy Division, The Fall, The Buzzcocks and The Smiths is certainly a heavyweight list.
The Pistols' set was still in development at this time and a couple of later classics were absent, although 'Pretty Vacant' was in their set besides a handful of covers and later Pistols album tracks. Bootlegged recordings reveal that the band were not the talentless, inept chancers that the old guard at the time tried to claim, but an accomplished, potent, full-bore rock'n'roll band. They may have sang 'No Future', but they were the future.