Places, Everyone!…Venue #8/25: The Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England

The history of modern music is filled with moments that acted as the spark that helped to inspire those who launch whole new eras and genres of music. For instance, there are many stories written about nice young English lads named John Lennon and Eric Clapton and others who were bored with the music scene in the UK at the time and longed for something, anything different and exciting. Their experiences watching singers such as Big Mama Thornton, Little Richard, Muddy Waters and the like caused them to take up music in the belief that they had found what they were looking for and that they could do it, too. Such revelatory moments weren’t confined to the 1950s and 60s either. There are also many stories written about young girls such as Kelly Clarkson, P!nk, and even Beyoncé and their subsequent reactions after hearing the incendiary Jagged Little Pill album by Alanis Morissette for the first time. If someone like Alanis Morissette could stand up for herself in the world of men and sing forcefully about it, so could they. And they have! All of these singers, and many more, have had long, successful careers because they found validation from others who told them that what they felt in their hearts had value and was important. There is even a famous quote about the significance of these important musical moments. It’s centred on a very young Lou Reed, John Cale and the other members of the Velvet Underground in New York City. The quote goes something like “The Velvet Underground’s first album only sold around 10,000 copies. But each of those people went out and started their own band”. While I can’t vouch for the accuracy of that statement, I can say that there is something magical that happens every once in a while when a perfect set of circumstances align to change history. Today’s story chronicles one such moment when the perfect band arrived at the perfect time and performed in front of an audience that was absolutely thirsting for what that band brought to the stage that night. It is a moment that was as seismic for the music world of the 1970s, 80s and beyond as anything witnessed by the John Lennons and Eric Claptons of the world back in the 1950s. It was the evening that brought a brand new band called The Sex Pistols to Manchester, England. That concert, as the history books all say, changed everything going forward from that point on. Here is the story of that venue, that performance and the ripple effects of it that are still being felt by music lovers today.

The Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England was a unique performance venue in part because it is revered just as much for its political history as it was for its Arts-related history. The Free Trade Hall was built in the mid-1800s near the site of a famous event known as the Peterloo Massacre. *(You can read more about the Peterloo Massacre here). It remained an important venue in protest movement that arose against the Corn Laws. The Free Trade Hall was initially a wooden structure built in 1840. A few years later, that pavilion-like structure was replaced by a brick building. In 1858, it evolved into a concert hall that housed The Hallé Orchestra. During WWII, like many prominent buildings throughout England, the Free Trade Hall was badly damaged during the German bombing campaign known as The Blitz. It was rebuilt during the 1950s, reopening as a concert hall in 1959. In the late 1990s, the building was sold to private developers who, in turn, converted the building into a hotel. Several original elements of the Free Trade Hall were retained and incorporated into the design of this new hotel. For the sake of this post, I am going to focus on the time that the Free Trade Hall existed from 1959 and 1976. For not unlike the history of modern music in general, two notable events happened within the walls of this building that left their mark on modern music history. The sparks of change happened here. This is how it all went down and why it was so important.

Like many performance venues, the Free Trade Hall in Manchester had a main performance area, as well as a smaller, more intimate space on the upper floor. As mentioned, the main performance space was home to The Hallé Orchestra. But it was also used to host many concert performances by touring bands such as Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Pink Floyd and Genesis. Musicians such as Simon and Garfunkel graced the stage of the Free Trade Hall, too. But one of the most notable moments in Free Trade Hall music history took place in 1966. Folk singer Bob Dylan had already started making the transition to playing live on stage with an electric guitar and a backing band (known as The Hawks who, in time, became better known as The Band) who also used electric instruments while playing. The folk world went into an uproar. Bob Dylan had been viewed as being the future of the folk music movement but now that he had “gone electric”, many could not hide their disgust and disappointment. In 1966, Dylan and the Hawks began a tumultuous tour of England and Europe. Even in those pre-Internet days, word had spread from town to town, city to city that Bob Dylan was going to play his songs using an electric guitar. By the time Dylan had made it to Manchester, his tour had been marked by loud booing and much vitriol. For the Manchester show, Bob Dylan appeared on stage alone and played the first half of his show in the traditional folk style of just using his voice and a softly strummed acoustic guitar. The audience felt sense of relief that he had somehow “come to his senses” and reverted to his true folkie roots. However, when the curtain went up for the second act, Dylan appeared on stage holding an electric guitar, surrounded by the members of his backing band. The group launched into a raucous set of music. The crowd was initially stunned and overwhelmed. But, as the set progressed, they found their voice and began to boo, to slow clap and some even began to leave. At one point, just before the final song was to be played, an audience member cried out accusingly that Dylan was a “Judas!”. The accusation appeared to strike a nerve because Dylan angrily responded with “I don’t believe you! You’re a liar!” He then turned to the Hawks and instructed them to play even louder. That’s how the Manchester Free Trade Hall show ended. A bootleg album, erroneously entitled the Royal Albert Hall Show, was subsequently released and acts as a bit of an historical record of this event. Electric music was here to stay and it was at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester that Bob Dylan made that declaration stand in words and in deeds.

This brings us to the famous Sex Pistols gig of 1976. If you know your music history at all, then you will recognize that after 1969, the music world experienced a change of sorts. The whole Summer of Love feeling of optimism had ended. The Vietnam War was reaching its messy conclusion. The Watergate scandal in the U.S. and the effect that it had on the nature of how politics worked was unfolding on prime time TV. The Beatles had broken up. The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Rod Stewart and many others had fled England because of the income tax situation there. Everywhere one looked, there seemed to be a pessimistic void. This same feeling of doom and gloom applied to the city of Manchester as well. This is not to say that there still wasn’t live music. There was. The problem was that after the heyday of the 1960s in terms of new, innovative and meaningful music, the early 1970s music seemed cheesy and leaden by comparison. Prog. rock and its Tolkinian epic fantasies seemed like too much work for many young audiences to get excited about. Not everyone wanted to get stoned in their basements or flats; many still wanted to go out on a Friday night and party. But where were those good time bands? Where was the energy and the passion and the defiance that brings about change and makes things better?

Well like it or not, for many people, especially younger ones, the musical saviours the world was waiting for seemed to arrive in the form of punk rockers. In the US, it was bands like The Ramones and The New York Dolls and Johnny Thunder and the Heartbreakers who started thrashing about with lightning speed in the mid 1970s. In the UK, it all started with a band called The Sex Pistols. The story of that night in 1976 when The Sex Pistols played at The Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester was one of those rare moments in history when the conditions were ripe for change and change was what happened as a result. The repercussions of that concert were felt in Manchester and around the world for generations. Here is how the concert came to be and why it holds such a significant place in the timeline of the history of modern music.   

In that atmosphere of depression and despondency existed many young people who would go on to become extremely important figures in the world of music. Not unlike the world in which a young John Lennon found himself before seeing Little Richard play, many Manchester teenagers were impatiently waiting for something, anything to happen there, too. The story goes that one day two friends, who eventually became known by stage names as Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley, were sitting around complaining about the state of Manchester’s music scene while flipping through the pages of the New Musical Express magazine. It was while doing so that they came across the NME article that introduced The Sex Pistols to the world beyond London. From what the article mentioned, Shelley and Devoto thought that this band sounded exactly like the type of band that Manchester needed to inject some energy into its lifeless scene. So, they borrowed a car and made the long trek down to London and found Malcolm McLaren, the manager and creator of The Sex Pistols. They asked if the band would be interested in coming to Manchester to play a gig. To their surprise and relief, McLaren thought the idea was a good one and agreed to have the band appear. In time, Devoto and Shelley would come together to form a band of their own called The Buzzcocks (you can read about them here). But initially, they felt unprepared to open for The Sex Pistols and contented themselves with organizing the concert. When the evening of the concert arrived, legend has it that only 40 or so people actually showed up. However, in that crowd were the two members of the future Buzzcocks, along with a teenager that the world would come to know as Morrissey (You can read about Morrissey and his band The Smiths here, here, here and here), future members of Joy Division/New Order (You can read about these bands here, here, here, here and here), a young man named Mick Hucknall who was in several bands but is most well known for fronting Simply Red, along with a music entrepreneur named Tony Wilson who, at the time, was a television reporter for Granada TV but who, in time, founded Factory Records in Manchester, opened a nightclub called The Hacienda and, in doing so, helped launch the Alternative music scene in “Madchester”, as well as the EDM/House Music/Rave scenes that came to sweep the world. Wilson’s impact on the world’s music scene was captured in a riproaring movie called 24 Hour Party People. In any case, in the audience of four dozen or so were the people who would pick up the torch that was held high by The Sex Pistols and would carry it forward based on the inspiration they all received that night at the Lesser Free Trade Hall.

The Sex Pistols did not play on the main stage of the Free Trade Hall. Instead, they were invited to perform in a smaller, more intimate performance space known as the Lesser Free Trade Hall. Regardless of the setting, when The Sex Pistols came on stage that night, they did so with much passion and delivered a blistering set that started out with cover songs but ended with the introduction of original material, some of which would end up on their famous album called Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols.  Initially, the idea that Malcolm McLaren had was to put together an anti-band. He wanted The Sex Pistols to have no talent and become famous anyway in spite of it as a way of mocking the music industry and thumbing his nose at the British public. But a funny thing happened on the way to realizing that dream: The Sex Pistols actually possessed a modicum of musical talent and could play reasonably well. That fact caught the attention of those in attendance right away. The music was quite good, and the performance earned the respect of those who witnessed it right out of the gate. But what really made The Sex Pistols who they were was the magnetic, charismatic, theatrical nature of front man John Lydon who went by the stage name of Johnny Rotten. Lydon sneered at and stared down everyone at The Lesser Free Trade Hall that night, leaving no doubt as to who was in charge and in control. The Sex Pistols brought it full force and blew that room of four dozen people completely away. Nothing was ever the same for them after that again.

That initial performance proved to be just the beginning of a highly successful relationship between The Sex Pistols and the city of Manchester. Malcolm McLaren thought that the show went so well (considering the negative reaction the band usually got when they played in London) that he asked Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto to organize a second show in six weeks time. The two friends did so, but this time, they were ready with their own band The Buzzcocks, who opened for The Sex Pistols, while debuting as a band. The Buzzcocks gave it their all for twenty minutes and were warmly received. They went on to have a good run of their own as a band before both men left for other projects, with Shelley going solo and Devoto forming the influential band called Magazine. The Sex Pistols put on a second well-received show. This time they introduced a new song that would go on to become one of the biggest punk rock hits of all time called “Anarchy in the UK”. (You can read more about The Sex Pistols here, here and here). But the good times continued from there when TV reporter Tony Wilson approached Malcolm McLaren and offered them a chance to appear on a music show he hosted on Granada TV. They agreed, and that performance became the band’s first live television appearance. All in all, The Sex Pistols made three memorable appearances in Manchester and changed that city and the rest of the world forever.

The history of modern music shows very clearly that every generation seems to bring with it the desire for new ways of performing and new ways of watching/listening to live music. Country music continues to grow today in part because of those role models who first appeared on The Grand Ole Opry show. The 1960s UK rock explosion happened because young men like John Lennon got to see authentic Blues and Soul as performed by the original music masters themselves such as Chuck Berry. Without Cher and Madonna and Alanis Morissette, the chances of there being no Taylor Swifts or Beyoncés of the world would be greatly increased. Everyone needs their own role models who allow them to believe that the dreams they hold in their hearts and minds can be made real. For bands such as Simply Red, The Smiths, The Cure, Joy Division, New Order, The Arctic Monkeys, Oasis, The Fall, The Happy Mondays (who you can read about here), there is a strong possibility that none of these bands would have come to fruition if not for that concert by The Sex Pistols in 1976 at The Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England. When you go to a concert, you never know when something magical is going to happen that changes everything. The wonderful thing about it all was that you didn’t even have to have been there to feel the impact that the concert had. My own personal musical awakening started in university when I became aware that bands such as The Cure, New Order and Joy Division even existed. Discovering that music helped to turn me into the lover of music I have become. None of that might have happened if not for The Lesser Free Trade Hall concert in 1976.

While the Free Trade Hall and its smaller room, the Lesser Free Trade Hall are no more, we are fortunate that there is plenty of archival footage of that concert, which I shall share in the links below. Lots of people claim to have been there that first night, but only forty or so actually were. Lucky for us, most of those people went out and started their own bands. We are all the better for it that they did.

The link to an excellent documentary called I Swear I Was There about The Sex Pistols concert at The Lesser Free Trade Hall in 1976 can be found here. ***If you are a fan of this era, I highly recommend this documentary. 

The link to the trailer for the movie 24 Hour Party People can be found here.

The official website for The Sex Pistols can be found here.

The official website for The Buzzcocks can be found here.

The official website for New Order can be found here.

The official website for Oasis can be found here.

The official website for The Happy Mondays can be found here.

The official website for The Smiths can be found here.

The official website for the city of Manchester, England can be found here.

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