‘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
Five Manchester artists we’ve been listening to this month | May 2025
Danny Jones
Oh, hey, didn’t see you there. Come looking for more top Manc tunage, have we? You’re in luck, because Greater Manchester just keeps pumping out top bands and artists all the time, hence why we do this.
If you’re new around these parts, first of all, welcome and secondly, the whole thing is very simple: every month, we round up some of the best talents coming out of 0161 and talk about why we like them. I know, groundbreaking stuff, right?
They don’t have to be born and bred in Manchester, but they do need to have made this their music home – the first the correct career decision they made, the second being working their way into our ears.
So, now all the housekeeping is done and dusted, let’s dive into some delightful new Manchester music, shall we?
Five Manc bands and artists we’ve been listening to recently
1. IST IST
This month we’re starting off with one of those Manchester bands that may not be new but still crop up for us at regular intervals to remind us of two things: first of all, that they’re brilliant and secondly, that they should have featured on our regular round-up of artists a long time ago.
We’re talking about IST IST, who returned with another live, multiple LP-spanning compilation (plus some extras) this past March, which we’ve had on plenty over the past month. It goes without saying that they sound brilliant live, and we feel bad for only just remembering how good and prolific they’ve been.
You always get plenty of New Order, but also White Lies and Editors; Future Islands, The National and lots of other baritone-driven bands that bring that element of melodrama to layer over the instruments themselves. ‘You’re Mine’ might be their biggest track, but ‘The Kiss’ and ‘Exist’ are also favourites.
2. Robbie Cavanagh
Now, we all know that country music is having a real moment right now and we, for one, couldn’t be happier about it, to be completely frank. Though arguably simplistic at times, it’s soulful, often impressively pared-back, and when something does impress you lyrically or technically, it sticks.
With that in mind, we recently realised that award-winning songwriter Robbie Cavanagh has been on somewhat of a comeback since 2023, and we hadn’t noticed until painfully recently. Returning after a six-year hiatus – bar some little ditties during lockdown – his latest project has some of his best work yet.
Fully tilting from folk into country and folk, the stunning vocalist belatedly blew us away with the bluesy single ‘Helpless’ and a gorgeous new collaboration with solo artist, Abby Gundersen (equally talented sister of Noah), but please still start with his 2016 Mahogany Session, where it arguably all began.
Named after Manchester city centre’s famously eclectic indie emporium, Afflecks Palace have never quite blown up in the way they way we thought they would when we first came across them years ago, but there’s still plenty of time and we’ll be damn it if they don’t deserve more regular listeners.
You’ll also be glad to know that, despite the name, they aren’t one of those trite, overly performative bands who wear a stereotypical Manc-ness on their sleeve that we sometimes come across; they’re just good and deserve a lot more recognition for their contribution to the neo-pysch genre.
As for where to start, we’ll admit we prefer their first album; ‘Forever Young’ is noodley and catchy, ‘Everything Is an Attempt to Be Human’ has those shoegazey guitars, but it just doesn’t get better than the incomparable ‘Pink Skies’, which still makes us feel some type of way – we just can’t quite describe.
We just love it. ‘Nu-Madchester’, or whatever you want to call it, its distinct sunniness never fails to tickle a part of our brains.
4. Findlay
Next up is Stockport singer-songwriter Findlay, who released more new music this past February, and has been making indie pop that ropes in plenty of other influences for more than a decade now.
That being said, she’s always experimenting with her sound, as her collabs with Blossoms, Miles Kane, Bill Ryder-Jones, Joris Delacroix have shown, and this latest iteration seems to have her tapping into everything from almost 50s and 60s female soul singers to slow electronic and more.
We love the smooth sexiness and sheer ambition of her latest single, ‘Stay Kinky’ and ‘Waste My Time’ always feels like a late-night chiller fit for music video set in a dingey bar, however, we still have a soft spot for her debut, ‘Your Sister’, with the riff that’s almost reminiscent of ‘Blockbuster’ by Sweet.
Last but not least, it’s the second time we’re featuring a returning artist and it comes in the form of young Alex Spencer, whose journey from busking around the streets of Greater Manchester to sold-out headlines shows and featuring on the likes EA Sports FC 25 (yes, FIFA) is a truly remarkable one.
The charming and still fresh-faced local lad from Droylsden is nothing short of proof that hard work and determination can pay off, and those ‘Bucket List’ dreams really are within reach. Obvious talent aside, this teenager has grafted his arse off and we couldn’t be more proudof how far he’s come already.
He last featured in this round-up back in April 2024 but even in the time between then, he’s released plenty and developed even further as musician, so much so that we’re not going to suggest which songs to try; instead, you can watch our most recent interview with him and relive his last year or so with us.
I’m Alex Spencer and This is my journey so far!
8 years of my music journey summed up in 1 minute 55😅 Thankyou to everyone who’s followed my journey so far, to anyone new or to anyone who doesn’t know my story, I made this video to show where it all started and how I got here❤️ pic.twitter.com/Hi3W7MHMxX
So, the next time you hear someone foolishly complaining that the Greater Manchester music scene ‘isn’t what it once was’, you can go right ahead of show them these bands and artists.
In fact, you could just point them in the direction of this very page and Audio North, in general, as we do this round-up every month and plenty more every week, meaning you’re headphones never dry up.
For instance, you can check out which Manchester bands and artists we were listening to back in April, both new, current and old, down below. We’ll see you again very soon.
Bruce Springsteen’s unforgettable final night at Co-op Live in Manchester – just wow…
Danny Jones
It’s rare you get to see legends in real life, especially this up close and personal, but there’s still just one key word that keeps coming to mind when we think of seeing Bruce Springsteen in Manchester at the Co-op Live last night: surreal.
We still can’t quite believe that he was here in Manchester, in the flesh, for three separate nights, but we do intend to replay it in our heads over and over again until it fully sinks in.
Springsteen, ‘The Boss’, Brucey, whatever you want to call him, there really is something to be said for someone who’s been going this long and still exerts so much energy at 75.
That goes for his desperately loyal and dedicated crowds, too. The legions that marched down ‘Thunder Road’ and back down the CityLink walking route and the Ashton canal in supreme spirits after all was said and done gave as good as they got.
We can only assume Springsteen was as incredible on the first night at Co-op Live as he was on the last. (Credit: Audio North)
From singing back every chorus to the chants of “Bruuuuuuuce!” between every single song, it was more apparent than ever that being a Springsteen fan is quite literally a way of life for these people; they know every line, every call and response, every micro-dance move and regular on-stage ritual.
Each show is roughly three hours long, by the way – he does have an absolute treasure trove of discography to work through, in fairness.
Put simply, there’s no messing about, just non-stop rock and roll of the highest order. Well, there are some brief pauses, but for good reason…
As a passionate political and philanthropic person throughout a career which spans more than six decades, he took the time to talk about America and the turbulent times they are once again facing.
He spoke about the craven billionaire class, poverty, uniting through art and, just as he did on night one in Manchester, Springsteen railed against a particular tyrant who happens to have found himself in the seat of power yet again back over in the States. He made sure to do this every single night.
‘Born in the U.S.A.’ (which he did decide to play, along with a plethora of the other biggest hits) now feels more like a protest song than ever. The war may no longer be in Vietnam, but there is one raging back home, and he’s even more wary of it than before.
He thanked those in the pit and the stands for indulging him, as well as the “wonderful space” of the Co-op and its “beautiful sound” for hosting him, but we have a feeling the New Jersey poet could have said just about anything and he’d still have 23,500+ in the palm of his hands.
All that being said, it wasn’t like this was a pseudo-rally or anything like that, nor was anything of this being foisted upon the audience, but there was a real sense of a congregation gathering in the church of Bruce to take in his sermon.
His followers have often been referred to in this way, and despite only previously considering ourselves a very casual Springsteen enthusiast, having now been to a sell-out arena gig with one of the biggest Boss fans we know, we can understand why millions of people around the world idolise this absolute icon.
It goes without saying that a huge amount of applause must go to The E Street Band themselves, who are just as much a part of what makes Springsteen sets so special as he is.
From the ever-charismatic Steven Van Zandt (still hard not to see him as ‘Sil’ from The Sopranos) to Jake Clemons on sax – who has been part of the group since 2012 and shared a touching embrace with Bruce as tributes to his predecessor and uncle, Clarence, played behind them – these lot are a family.
Our only minor gripe is that we sorely missed hearing ‘Atlantic City’, but what the concert did confirm is that much like the effect the recent Bob Dylan biopic had on us, we’re now more committed than ever to working through the Springsteen back catalogue from start to finish and seeing how obsessed we get.
To end on one final thought and echo the words of the man himself: “peace, love and freedom.”