Ripples in polluted water: Five ways the Sex Pistols first gig changed music
Some 50 years ago, the Sex Pistols played their first ever gig. That’s a fact comparable to: 13.8 billion years ago, there was the Big Bang. However, instead of giving rise to stars and planets, this bang ushered in what we now know as punk.
The band was born from the rubble of a crumbling nation. John Lydon and co decided that they wanted to make music which was more a representation of real life. None of this “hopeful” bollocks, hope was in short supply. Instead, these denim-clad spikey-haired musicians dealt in frustration, anger, and most importantly, anarchy.
“Early 1970s Britain was a very depressing place. It was completely run-down, there was trash on the streets, total unemployment – just about everybody was on strike,” said Lydon, “Everybody was brought up with an education system that told you point blank that if you came from the wrong side of the tracks… Then you had no hope in hell and no career prospects at all. Out of all that came pretentious moi, and the Sex Pistols, and then a whole bunch of copycat wankers after us.”
Their music gained traction, but it was their gigs that really set the band apart from anything else. Fifty years on from their on-stage debut at St Martin’s College supporting Bazooka Joe, it’s time we assessed how the band’s live show completely changed music forever.
How the Sex Pistols’ first gig changed music forever:
Sing it like you mean it
There were already people who used emotive vocals in music before the Sex Pistols came along, but the delivery of John Lydon was in its own league. When he sang about ‘Anarchy in the UK’, people weren’t necessarily disgusted because of the words, but because of how Lydon sang them. When he said “anarchy” it sounded less like singing and more like a call to arms.
This existed in his studio work, but was amplified even more when the band played live. Sex Pistols lyrics were given a new attitude, and everyone listening understood exactly what the vocals were capable of. They could sound nice, sure, but they could also be used to exuberate anger, striking either rage or fear into the hearts of all those who were listening.
Adam Ant
This might seem like an odd one, but without that first Sex Pistols gig, we probably wouldn’t have gotten Adam Ant. The Sex Pistols’ first gig was supporting Bazooka Joe, a band that had Adam Ant (whose real name is Stuart Goddard) playing on bass. They were pretty run-of-the-mill as things go, but when Adam Ant saw the outrageous nature of a live punk show, he knew where his future in music lay.
A couple of years later, inspired by Sex Pistols and the punk movement as a whole, Ant decided to start his own punk band, the legendary outfit that we now know as Adam and the Ants. The genre likely wouldn’t have had the impact it did were Ant not at the first live show, which constituted 30 minutes of chaos that changed him forever.
The punk mindset
For anyone who might have been confused about what the punk mindset was, the Sex Pistols’ first gig made everything crystal clear. It was a combination of the look, the thrashing music, and a don’t-give-a-fuck attitude, which culminated in utter chaos. The band were fighting each other and the audience, while churning out music that didn’t really sound like anything. Welcome to the punk mindset.
“‘Hurry up, they’re having an orgy on stage’,” wrote Neil Spencer in the NME, what is now a pretty famous review of the first Sex Pistols gig, “Said the bloke on the door as he tore the tickets up. I walked to the front and straightaway sighted a chair arcing gracefully through the air, skidding across the stage and thudding contentedly into the PA system, to the obvious nonchalance of the bass drums and guitar. Well I didn’t think they sounded that bad on first earful–then I saw it was the singer who’d done the throwing.”
The pogo
Of course, it wasn’t just the Sex Pistols who were aggressive on stage, but the entire crowd was going wild. People were moshing, fighting, and generally treating the gig like it was their chance to release whatever pent-up frustration was bothering them. This was another side of punk, it wasn’t just the artists that represented the anger of those listening, but they gave those listeners a place to expel it.
Of course, as punk developed, original punk rockers grew to despise what they called “posers.” The crazy dancing and moving from that first Sex Pistols gig inspired what would later become the Pogo, a dance made up by Sid Vicious to mock other people in the crowd who he didn’t think were real punks.
Divine relatability
Finally, the Sex Pistols gig proved one thing, and this was a major revelation to all those watching and all those who would continue to watch: music is accessible. You have to keep in mind that prior to the punk movement, a lot of people’s only frame of reference for music was huge bands like the Rolling Stones, who seemed completely untouchable because of their magnitude.
When Sex Pistols took to the stage that night, they proved that music was available to all. Their relatability inspired kids to pick up busted-up guitars and learn the basics, without letting the intimidating nature of the music industry stop them. This point is highlighted best by the punk fanzine Sideburns, who famously wrote, “A D G, now start a band.”
