‘I Swear I Was There’: The myth of Manchester’s most famous gig
A Sex Pistols performance in 1976 has gone down in folklore as the “gig that changed the world”. Everyone claims to have been there. But the truth is more complicated than that...
One Saturday morning, during an ad break on his Radio Manchester chat show, Tony Wilson leaned over his microphone and whispered into his guest’s ear.
“You know what you said about me not being at that Sex Pistols gig? That was fucking snide!”
Wilson sneered the words and loomed for a moment, before sliding back into his chair and welcoming listeners with his velvety broadcasting voice like nothing had happened.
The studio guest that day was David Nolan – a local journalist who had investigated the illustrious Lesser Free Trade Hall gig on 4 June 1976 and concluded Wilson had probably not been in attendance.
This was a big problem for Wilson. It didn’t fit his legend.
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That Sex Pistols performance has gone down in folklore as the “gig that changed the world” – a tiny rock concert that proved to be compost for the Madchester movement. Members of the crowd were said to be so inspired by what happened on stage, they would go on to launch a revolutionary movement – becoming the headline artists, writers, and creatives of a sensational new scene. It’s the gig credited with creating The Smiths, Joy Division, Buzzcocks and The Fall. Why wouldn’t Wilson – the man who co-launched the city’s behemothic Factory Records and Hacienda nightclub – be there?
But after creating a documentary and penning a best-selling book on that famous punk rock performance, Nolan deduced – against the tide of popular opinion – that ‘Mr Manchester’ Tony Wilson was likely elsewhere on the night the city’s music scene was born.
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Naturally, Wilson didn’t like it. But 20 years since Nolan published I Swear I Was There (which has been lauded by fellow scene-setters Peter Hook and Paul Morley – two men who were at the gig) he’s yet to be proven wrong.
Tony Wilson was the face of Madchester… but he may not have been at ‘the gig that changed the world’ / Image: Loco Steve via Flickr
Regardless of whether Wilson was in the room that night or not, his influence at the dawn of Madchester remains undeniable. As Nolan points out, the presenter hosted another event a few weeks after the Pistols gig that might have played an even bigger role in launching the music scene that would reverberate around the world.
“Three things actually happened in Manchester that summer,” Nolan explains.
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“There was the first Sex Pistols gig in June, a second Sex Pistols gig in July, and then later in September [the band] appeared on So It Goes on television. That performance was organised by Tony Wilson. Hundreds of thousands of people will have watched it. It could have even been more influential [than the Lesser Free Trade Hall shows].”
Nonetheless, it’s that first Sex Pistols gig on June 4 that still serves as the setting for the fable. Everyone still wants to be part of it; Wilson wasn’t the only one.
Indeed, over the past 45 years, hundreds insist they paid their 50p and watched history in the making that night. They swear they were there.
Ticket sales show that about 40 people were actually in attendance – which suggests the past four decades have been full of fibbing. But Nolan says it’s more complicated than that.
“Remember, there were two Sex Pistols gigs that summer,” he explains.
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“When we did the original documentary programme, we devised a test and questionnaire for people to fill in.
“What we found out was that some people were at the second gig, but thought they were at the first. Some were at neither. But 99% of time people were genuinely convinced they had been there.
“Both the documentary and book are full of contradictory stories from people – that’s the notion of memory. People misremember things.
“Plus – it’s a flipping long time ago!”
A ticket for entry to the Sex Pistols gig in 1976. Entry cost 50p.
Originally published in 2001, Nolan’s book was the first real piece of research-led work into the Sex Pistols gig – with much of the previous literature being muddled, confused or lacking in clarity.
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“Music writers from that period weren’t necessarily massive fact-checkers,” Nolan states.
“It was all done in the pub. Stories were just passed on by word of mouth. So, I started [the book] as a brand new story and ignored what was written before.
“I was already a journalist who just ended up writing about music – I approached it a bit like a court case or crime scene. I was focused on getting every single detail right.”
Nolan spoke to everyone he could in an attempt to build the first truthful picture of the gig since it went through mythologisation. He interviewed everyone from gig organisers and performers to regular folks who’d just hopped on a bus from Denton after spotting an ad for the show in the Manchester Evening News.
He even achieved what no one else had done before and successfully tracked down the supporting band who played before the Pistols that evening – a Bolton group called Solstice.
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“That’s where the gold was; people who hadn’t told the story a thousand times before,” Nolan grins.
A promotional poster for the Sex Pistols show at Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester in 1976.
Nolan wasn’t at the Free Trade Hall in June ‘76 (he was 12 at the time) – but the famous gig still changed his life.
Working as a young journalist in Altrincham in the 1980s, Nolan had got chatting to fellow writer called Pete Oldham – who claimed to have been at both Sex Pistols gigs. The hyperbolic status of these shows was already set in stone even then – and Oldham had to show off his ticket stubs to convince Nolan he’d actually gone. But the whole conversation raised the idea of creating a documentary – a piece of television that would determine who was actually there, and who wasn’t.
Later at Granada Studios Nolan began working on that very concept – and was pulled away mid-production to produce a book to go alongside the TV programme.
He was given nine weeks to write it – a rollercoaster-like process involving lots of late nights in which “he almost went mad” – but got it over the line. Holding his copy aloft was a proud moment, and when he spotted a display dedicated to the book in Waterstones it almost made him “pass out”.
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David Nolan holding a copy of I Swear I Was There aloft in 2001 and again in 2021
The first edition of I Swear I Was There received a solitary review, calling it “tedious beyond belief”. In 2006 it was re-released with a new cover and five-star acclaim across the board – including a description by GQ as ”one of the greatest rock stories ever told”.
Nolan’s been a published author ever since – with 15 books under his belt (including the riveting Manc Noir thrillers Black Moss and The Mermaid’s Pool). But what makes I Swear I Was There quite so special is the fact that it’s still causing conversation today.
“This kind of thing just won’t happen again,” Nolan explains.
“The whole thing would be recorded on people’s phones and uploaded to social media.
“It’s like the fly in Jurassic Park – perfectly preserved in amber. That’s the beauty of it.”
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David Nolan’s book ‘I Swear I Was There’ / Image: Amazon
Every few years, some new information about that first Sex Pistols gig comes to light. A fresh anecdote. A forgotten image. A long-lost tiny relic. But still no definitive evidence that Wilson was in attendance.
“There were 40-odd people in the audience that night… and Tony was incredibly famous,” Nolan states.
“For people not to notice he was there… I’m not sure. Pete Shelley from Buzzcocks who took the money on the door doesn’t remember Tony being there. Howard Devoto who organised the gig doesn’t remember Tony being there.
“But who knows. In another five years I could have found a photograph of Tony Wilson stood next to the Sex Pistols at the gig and I’ll have to make an apology.
“Or we may never know. It’s all part of the fun. That’s the great thing about this story – new stuff is happening all the time. Even now.
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“You just never know what will happen next.”
‘I Swear I Was There’ is available online from Amazon.
David Nolan is hosting an official author evening titled ‘Murder, music and Manc Noir’ later this month live on Zoom. Tickets are free and can be booked online here.
Feature
Taemin at AO Arena: Take the K-pop world’s ‘Advice’ – you need to watch him live
Thomas Melia
This time last month, South Korean star, SHINee and SuperM boyband member, Taemin showed Manchester the real meaning of ‘The Rizzness’. It was our first K-pop gig and won’t be our last.
Normally, if you ask me what I’m getting up to on a Tuesday night, I’d respond with the usual: “Nothing.” Ask me this random but eye-opening night back in March 2025, and I’d say, “Watching the ‘Ephemeral Glaze’ tour”.
Opening with a song labelled ‘Déjà vu’, ironically, felt from the truth, as the minute the performer stepped onto the stage, the whole crowd was watching what felt like an all-new spectacle come to life – even for some of the already inducted K-pop fans inside the AO Arena.
Following up with ‘Guilty’, I’d be lying if I told you we didn’t love this performance. It wasn’t overshadowed by that unbelievable grand opening either – if anything, it was even better.
A majestic pose from Taemin at AO Arena in Manchester, performing to a lively crowd.Credit: Audio North
This was a setlist that just keeps on giving: after this, ‘Advice’ greets our ears and fans erupt in various screams and cries, to which Taemin, 31, certainly appreciated.
It’s high energy through and through, as the next song, ‘Idea’, felt like the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle for those of us not so used to this kind of music, well and truly captivating the Manc crowd.
Closing what was merely his opening segment with this song was definitely a good ‘Idea’… (sorry).
Its title may draw from a comedic viral term used to describe someone with great flirting skills, a.k.a. ‘rizz’, but ‘The Rizzness’ is no laughing matter.
Fans caught on quickly, and as soon as the first note was pumped out into the arena, the atmosphere reached whole new heights and those familiar screams at an other-worldly pitch returned.
I never thought I’d see the day where AO Arena screamed, “You know I got the rizz, the rizzness”, but there’s a first time for everything, I guess.
Taemin and his dancers were electric at AO Arena.Credit: The Manc Group
Being from Korea, 31-year-old Taemin tried his best to communicate with the crowd throughout the night, taking breaks after back-to-back performances to gauge the audience’s reactions.
The South Korean superstar didn’t take long to warm up to the crowd and showed off his cheeky side, telling the arena, “Only 4 more songs” before finishing the sentence with “I lied”.
‘Criminal’ had me and the rest of Manchester weak in the knees; the choreography was flawless throughout, but this was a true highlight. Ending with ‘Say Less’, Taemin knew exactly what he was doing, putting a song that catchy right at the end, as this was all that replayed in my head on the train home.
Put it this way, we may still be relative newbies to the world of Korean pop music, but with another big name heading to Manchester, we’re definitely keen to find out more.
The best Manchester-based anime-style memes we’ve seen online as Ghibli craze takes over
Danny Jones
Now, the internet can be used for a lot of silly and pointless things – you might argue us sharing our favourite memes every morning is a prime example of that – but we have to admit, the second we saw a Manchester-inspired Studio Ghibli image on social media, we were hooked.
If you have absolutely no idea what we’re talking about, there is a current craze that has taken over the internet, which has seen recognisable memes and images recreated in the style of the iconic Ghibli anime films, created by legendary animator and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki.
Once you’ve found one, you tend to start spotting them more and more frequently, and in the case of the chronically online like us, we’ve been inundated with them for weeks now.
People are using AIto create them in various different contexts, but it won’t surprise you to learn that our favourite Ghibli/anime memes are those based around Manchester. For example:
Bloody hell, the internet really is brilliant sometimes, isn't it? 😂 https://t.co/virpFx60u7
As it happens, this was the first and perhaps still the best we’ve seen to date, but it didn’t stop us from falling down an animated rabbit hole looking for others.
To be honest, we didn’t actually have to do much searching ourselves as they’re absolutely all over the algorithm at the minute, and have been for a good month or so.
‘Ghibli memes’ may be an overgeneralisation of what is a rather specific and famed art style, but this ongoing flood of anime-style cartooons is being created by users giving prompts to ChatGPT, the increasingly popular large language model (LLM) and AI tool.
Designed with OpenAI software, the artificial intelligence chatbot can do everything from write extensive study notes and flash cards to fixing blurry images, writing computer code, entire essays and quite literally countless other things.
In this instance, people are just reimagining moments from the zeitgeist and famous memes in this style by feeding the image to ChatGPT, along with an ‘in the style of Studio Ghibli’ prompt.
One for the Blues…And the Reds.All of these images have been designed using ChatGPT. (Credit: Eleventh Minute/centredevils via X)
Pretty cool, right?
You’ll find that footballer Twitter (sorry, X*), in particular, is absolutely full of fan accounts recreating iconic club scenes in the Miyazaki art style, giving their favourite players big ‘Chibi’ eyes (another unique aspect of anime) and so on.
It’s all just a bit of a laugh, after all; even we here at The Manc put ChatGPT to the test back in June 2023 and asked it to design ‘the perfect day out in Manchester’ – to varying degrees of success, we might add.
As ever with machine-learning, the more information you feed it, the better the result and although we know these are original pictures being reimagined, it still goes to show just how impressive and varied AI is becoming.
We’ve also enjoyed some that aren’t necessarily Manc but are quintessential British humour or simply more universal memes.
Exhibits E and F…
Even after all these years, we feel like we still see this in some context at least once a week – and it still makes us laugh.‘What a sad little life, Jane…’Credit: brandsynario (via Instagram)/No Context Brits (via X)
Despite these memes riding a real wave right now, the Ghibli portrait fad is just that; there are plenty of other aesthetics being toyed with, too.
Actually, it already has, as we’ve now started coming across people making action figure versions of themselves and/or famous people, full decked out with accessories inside blister packs and everything.
On the other hand, many people are understandably concerned about what this means for artists and although there is no substitute for genuine human expression, whatever form that may come in, lots of people are railing against it as the possibility of AI-based pop music has been posited.
With that in mind, maybe the best twist we’ve seen is our very own Stanley Chow subverting the trend and doing Ghibli stuff in his equally iconic style. We’ll take these geometric gems over computer-generated imitations any day.
For now, it’s just a bit of fun and we confess we’ve got some light entertainment out of it, but the increasing possibilities being thrown up by AI in terms of art do pose a lot more complex questions.
We’ll finish with one final example because let’s be honest, there’s only really one thing on our minds at the minute – at least until the summer finally rolls around…
Let us know if you’ve seen any other fun examples and what you make of the whole Ghibli meme trend down in the comments.