The “high energy” Valentine’s evening when Vivienne Westwood spat on the Sex Pistols
Attending those early punk gigs must have been a real treat. Stood on the edge of counterculture, the frontline of a movement that would change the musical world forever.
The first gig that Sex Pistols ever played was at St Martin’s College, which was a show that came packed with fighting, distortion, and attitude, all of the hallmarks of a great punk gig. While the show did receive some coverage, it was by no means the biggest show that the band would ever play, far from it.
Everyone who wound up going to see the band play live was blown away by the energy they could bring to their shows. Rock music was becoming inaccessible in its grandeur, and the United Kingdom was in political turmoil as the wealth gap grew larger and societal injustices ran rampant. Punk music gave people a means by which they could channel their frustration, whether that was in the creation of music or the consumption of it.
One of the band’s earliest “big gigs” came on Valentine’s Day in 1976, when they were playing at a day event held by the artist Andrew Logan. There were plenty of big names on the guest list, including Mick Jones, who would go on to become the guitarist for The Clash, Vivienne Westwood, Malcolm McLaren and punters from the press.
The reason the gig was classed as big was that there were a lot of big names in attendance; however, on top of that, they were the only people who were actually in attendance. As far as numbers are concerned, there were still only around ten listeners watching, but given their knowledge of the artistic world, they knew that they were witnessing the birth of a new style of music, which, without a doubt, was going to take over the world.
Vivienne Westwood was one of the leaders of the punk revolution, both with her mindset and her adventurous fashion. You could argue she was more punk than the musicians who were spearheading the sound of the genre, and the way she acted at gigs was a good reflection of that. Sex Pistols were always overtly confrontational, but that in itself invited confrontation, and Westwood was happy to oblige. She did so at this Valentine’s gig by standing in the front row of the small crowd and spitting on the band as they played.
The filmmaker Derek Jarman was in attendance, getting some footage of the band performing and attempting to document the counterculture as effectively as possible. When talking about the show, he recalled Westwood being in the front row and showing everyone just how punk she was.
“It was a high energy racket,” he said when talking about the show, “There was about 10 or 15 people there, and Jordan and Vivienne in the front row were egging them on and gobbing on them.”
This is a simple reflection of the attitude that a lot of lovers of punk had. They enjoyed a gig that could erupt into chaos, and this meant not only forming mosh pits and raving like a lunatic, but also attempting to antagonise the band on stage as best as you could. These early shows helped shape the movement, for all its unconventional beauty.
