On this day 1976 - Sex Pistols play their first Scottish gig

John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten, lead singer of the Sex Pistols, who performed their first Scottish gig in Dundee 44 years ago today.

The Sex Pistols played at the student union of the Dundee College of Technology – known locally as the Bowling Alley – with the small Tuesday-night gig lingering in the memory of the group given the drunken crowd bottled Johnny Rotten and fellow members off the stage.

Bass player and song writer Glen Matlock, in an earlier interview, said: "There weren't that many people there but they must have drunk a lot cause there were lots of bottles of Tennent's and Newcastle Brown.

"People just began throwing bottles at us and we had to go off stage. The door was just behind the drum riser and it was going bang bang bang bang bang from the sound of the bottles for about fifteen minutes.

"Eventually they ran out of ammunition and we opened the door and the place had cleared and we went to the bar to get a drink."

These two blokes were there and they said to us 'Why didn't you come out and play any more numbers?' and we said 'Because you were throwing bottles at us and they replied: "But we read that you liked that."

The small gig was the warm up to a piece of punk history. After the gig at the Bowling Alley, The band were due to perform again at the Caird Hall on December 1 that same year, with manager Malcolm McLaren hastily pulling together a bill that also featured the Damned and the Clash.

But it was hastily re-arranged to the 16th after the band were asked to step in and fill a cancellation of the now-infamous episode of the Bill Grundy show.

The Sex Pistols, who appeared on the show after Queen’s Freddie Mercury pulled out due to toothache, earned the wrath of the mainstream after presenter Grundy dared Steve Jones to say something outrageous. At the time the F-word wasn’t heard on television and the nation was appalled.

The band were subsequently banned from most of the UK venues where they were booked to play, with the Caird Hall gig on the 16th among the casualties.

In 2018, lead singer John Lydon recalled remarks by Chic Farquhar, the Lord Provost of Dundee in 1976, who said on banning the concert: “There are enough hooligans in Scotland without importing them from England”

Lydon described the remarks as: “The greatest compliment of all.”

Plans to come back to the city the following March or April – as well as perform gigs in Aberdeen and Glasgow – were also scrapped as city leaders ousted the punks from playing at publicly-owned venues.

According to newspaper reports, one Dundee councillor was minded to let the Caird Hall gig go ahead – until he read of the band’s song Belsen Was A Gas.

The band appeared in Glasgow in 1996 at the SECC as part of their Filthy Lucre reunion tour.

A message from the Editor:Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.Subscribe to scotsman.com and enjoy unlimited access to Scottish news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.scotsman.com/subscriptions now to sign up.

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Joy Yates

Editorial Director