Pistols Vintage ’76 Come Back To Life

Published on

June 3, 2016

Four historic 1976 concerts by the Sex Pistols will be anthologised for the first time on a new 4CD, 4LP and digital release by Universal Music Group on 19 August.

Live ’76, officially sanctioned by the band themselves, features the first full release of the recordings, which have been mastered at Abbey Road Studios. They include the band’s famed gig of 4 June, 1976 at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall, which was set up by future Buzzcocks members Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto, with such future luminaries as Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner and Morrissey in the audience.

The second disc contains the Midnight Special concert of 29 August that year at the Screen on the Green in Islington, north London, where the Pistols were supported by Buzzcocks themselves and The Clash. Disc three, from 17 September, is the performance at Chelmsford Maximum Security Prison, the only one of these four gigs to be recorded officially, by Pistols soundman Dave Goodman. The concert on disc four is one that’s been well-known to fans as a bootleg but is now making its official, full live release debut, from the band’s appearance at the 76 Club in Burton-on-Trent on 25 September. The set will include photographs from the era and a facsimile of an original Sex Pistols Glitterbest press kit.