"We'd Just Never Seen Anything Like It" (opens in new tab)

The Sex Pistols in 1977. From left: Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Sid Vicious (né John Simon Ritchie), and Johnny Rotten (né John Lydon). In the summer of 1976, the Sex Pistols played two sparsely attended shows in Manchester. Among the few who did turn up were future members of Buzzcocks, the Fall, the Smiths, and Joy Division By Phil Tinline There are times when culture gets so stuck and suffocating, you just want something to explode. That was how Britain felt in the mid-1970s. If you were young...