In what has later been called "the gig that changed the world," the Sex Pistols appear at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England, helping to launch the punk era.
By June 1976, the Sex Pistols had been playing together under that name for only seven months, and though their look, their sound and their nihilistic attitude were already in place, they and the entire British punk scene were still a few months away from truly breaking out. They had drawn just enough attention in the British music press, though, to inspire two young men from Manchester named Howard DeVoto and Pete Shelley to go down and see them play in London in February. From this experience, two things happened: DeVoto and Shelley arranged for the Sex Pistols to come up north and play the Lesser Free Trade Hall; and then they formed their own new band, called the Buzzcocks. News of the June 4 gig in Manchester spread mostly by word of mouth, such that on the night of the show, perhaps as few as 40 people showed up in a room that could hold hundreds. In that small crowd, however, were some names that would help shape the course of pop music over the next decade:
