Tuesday 21 December 1976
Woods Centre, Plymouth
Anarchy Tour supporting the Sex Pistols with The Heartbreakers and the Damned.
page started 19 January 2017
updated 24 January 2020
INDEX
Recordings in circulation
Background
Tickets, Posters
Other
Venue
Gig Review
News Reports
Books
Magazines
Comments
Social Media
Photos
Recordings in circulation
No known audio or video
If you know of any recording, please email blackmarketclash
1976/77 Julian Temple's early footage 50hrs
Known to contain several concerts including The Roxy 1 Jan 1977 and Harlesden plus Rehearsals footageJulian Temples 1976 footage 18 hours - included Roxy/Anarchy Tour/Harlesden/Rainbow - only the footage that was used in the film eventually got digitised because it was shot on an obscure format that does exist anymore and so it cost a fortune to put onto tape.
Book: Return of the Last Gang in Town
Julian Temple's early footage
[Extract] ... Malcolm’s (Mclaren) band had a promo film, so Bernie’s (Rhodes) band had to have one too.
Julien’s (Temple) black and white footage of the Clash at Rehearsals, on the Anarchy Tour, at the Harlesden Coliseum and in the Beaconsfield studio had been shot prior to the Clash’s latest image change and so was outmoded.
In 1999, Julien would contribute clips of the various bands on the Anarchy Tour, the Clash rehearsing ‘What’s My Name?’ with Rob Harper, the band overdubbing vocals to ‘I’m So Bored With The USA’ at Beaconsfield, and the band posing on the balcony outside 111 Wilmcote House, to Don Letts’s Clash documentary Westway To The World.
His own Sex Pistols documentary, The Filth And The Fury, was finally released the following year.
Julien claims to have over 50 hours of Clash footage from the 1976-77 period, most of which has never been seen.
Background
Plymouth Woods Centre – Two Nights of Anarchy
Against the tide of cancellations elsewhere, Plymouth welcomed the Anarchy Tour twice.
As Plymouth Live later recalled, “This fearsome foursome were banned from just about every venue in the country when the punk rock Anarchy Tour got active in December 1976 – but Plymouth, a city famous for its love of freedom, let them play TWICE.” (William Telford, Plymouth Live, 24 March 2018).
The Woods Centre, later demolished under the Drake Circus mall, hosted the Pistols, The Clash, The Damned and the Heartbreakers, with DJ Andy Howard spinning records between sets. Howard remembered sharing coffee with Johnny Rotten: “He was such an intelligent guy… we talked about everything: the state of music, the adverse reaction to their gigs. He was very good at reading people’s personalities.”
Author Peter Smith noted that the first Plymouth night was well attended, while the second drew barely twenty punters, “including six members of the local chapter of the Hell’s Angels.” (Sex Pistols: The Pride of Punk, p.58).
Glen Matlock later reflected: “The last gig was the best of the whole tour, probably because we were all so happy that it was finally over. We didn’t even bother to change into our stage clothes, just played for each other.” (quoted in Lloyd, 2016). With the bus heading back to London on Christmas Eve, Plymouth marked both a reprieve from the tour’s chaos and its weary end.
UNKNOWN
The bands were stuck in hotels and couldn't go out because the media and the paparazzi were camped outside
"Another shot at the Dragonara. It was just before Christmas and the end of the tour and, given all the hassles, they were relieved it was over. So what do you do? You have a pillow fight..."
"The bands were stuck in hotels and couldn't go out because the media and the paparazzi were camped outside, so there was a bit of hi-jinks. This was in the Dragonara hotel in Plymouth. Steve's holding a water pistol, but I've no idea who that is under Rotten; possibly one of The Clash!"
Tickets, Posters, Adverts
POSTER
ORIGINAL Sex Pistols Anarchy in the UK tour flyer from Plymouth.
TICKET
Photos
Also: Sex Pistols Photo Archive Facebook
Open photos in full in new window
PHOTO: Joe Strummer and Johnny Rotten. Anarchy Tour. Plymouth. 1976
Sex Pistols Photo Archive | Facebook
PHOTO: The Clash's Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon snapped in the lift of what is now Plymouth's Crowne Plaza, 1976
This evening, December 21st, in 1976, The Clash as well as all the bill of the Anarchy Tour can connect their amplis to the Plymouth Woods Centre, ...
THE CLASH ON PAROLE | Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/
The Gig
No recording...
News Reports
William Telford Plymouth Live , 24 MAR 2018, UPDATED14 APR 2022
The 50 greatest gigs of all time: Plymouth's iconic concerts
No. 2 Sex Pistols, the Clash, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, the Damned
This fearsome foursome were banned from just about every venue in the country when the punk rock Anarchy Tour got active in December 1976 – but Plymouth, a city famous for its love of freedom, let them play TWICE.
The Pistols headlined two nights at Woods Centre, now lost beneath Drake Circus mall.
Famous Plymouth DJ Andy Howard was on the decks that night and even shared a cup of coffee with Johnny Rotten.
“He was such an intelligent guy,” recalled Andy. “We talked about everything: the state of music, the adverse reaction to their gigs.
"He was very good at reading people’s personalities.”
Plymouth was one of just a few cities to host the Anarchy tour in 1976
The Anarchy tour gig has been recreated twice, at the Hub, with tribute bands Sex Pistols Experience and London Calling standing in for the real thing.
The Clash (the other greatest band in the world) would return to the city’s Fiesta Suite, in Mayflower Street, to headline their own White Riot tour in May 1977, playing most of their newly released debut LP with support from Buzzcocks, Subway Sect and the Slits.
PHOTO: The Clash's Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon snapped in the lift of what is now Plymouth's Crowne Plaza, 1976
Books
Book: Peter Smith, Sex Pistols: The Pride of Punk Google books, page 58
Book: Sex Pistols: The Pride of Punk
"In addition to the concerts in Leeds, Manchester, and Caerphilly, the tour also managed to play concerts at Clecthorpes Winter Gardens on December 20, and ended with two gigs at Plymouth Woods Centre on December 21 and 22.
The first night at Plymouth was well attended; however, the second concert, and the last night of the tour, saw just twenty punters, including six members of the local chapter of the Hell's Angels, turn up to see the bands.
Matlock remembers the last gig as "the best of the whole tour, probably because we were all so happy that it was finally over. We didn't even bother to change into our stage clothes, just played for each other" (Lloyd 2016). The tour bus returned to London on Christmas Eve. The Sex Pistols were tired and broke.
What had started out as the punk package tour of all time almost ended in disaster.
Toward the end of the Anarchy tour, plans were assembled for the Sex Pistols to play in London, and discussions took place about a pos- sible gig at the Roxy Theatre in Harlesden on December 26 and 27 (not to be confused with the punk club The Roxy, which opened in central London around the same period).
Terry Collins, licensee of the Roxy Theatre, told New Musical Express (1976: 2) that the Pistols "booked rehearsal time at the Roxy, so I went along to assess them, and I was horrified by their attitude which was absolutely disgusting." Collins also alleged that the band had caused "considerable backstage damage" and that he finally decided not to allow the band to play because he did not "want to condone their attitude."
The Roxy Theatre was to host a head- line gig by The Clash in 1977."
Magazines
Comments
Seen them in Plymouth in '76
Col Pownall - Seen them in Plymouth in '76
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Social Media
The Clash Official | Facebook
1. Woods Centre Plymouth Facebook Posts
2. Woods Centre Facebook Profile
Headline
Text
Extensive archive
of articles, magazines and other from the Anarchy Tour
INDEX
PAGE 1 - The Anarchy Tour, pre Bill Grundy
Anarchy Tour 'Dates' - pre Bill Grundy show
Articles - before Bill Grundy Show
Posters
PAGE 2 - The Bill Grundy Show, the outrage
LWT (ITV) Bill Grundy Show
Bill Grundy front page newspaper headlines
The 'moral-outrage', moral panic that followed
EMI's response
PAGE 3 - The fallout, Tour collapses
Revised Dates following the Grundy outrage
Anarchy Tour Adverts, before and after
The fallout from Bill Grundy show
Feature Magazines
Books (Anarchy Tour)
PAGE 4 - The Clash, restrospectives, photos
Anarchy Tour Photos
The Clash & The Anarchy Tour
1976 feature magazines
1976 Sundry
www.blackmarketclash.co.uk
email blackmarketclash.co.uk@gmail.com
STRUMMER, BAD, Pogues, films + : THE SOLO YEARS STRUMMER & THE LATINO ROCKABILLY WAR BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS & FEATURE MAGAZINES Sex Pistols / The Jam / The Libertines / Others
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If you know of any recording, please email blackmarketclash
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ANARCHY TOUR A collection of A collection of articles, interviews, reviews, posters, tour dates from the ill feted Anarchy Tour. Articles cover December and the Tour.
ANARCHY TOUR, Video and audio footage
ANARCHY TOUR, BOOKS
*page numbers relate to print edition Anarchy Tour pg197 ...
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