The Stranglers gig that got punk ‘banned’ from Glasgow

Stage invasion at Stranglers gig in Glasgow City Halls, June 1977.

One of the great things about doing our music tours is hearing our guests’ gig stories.

The tours are packed with anecdotes about famous gigs but it’s always good to hear the different stories from people who were actually at them. It is amazing how many different versions of the same gig people remember.

Recently, we had a guest on our Merchant City tour who had been at the infamous Stranglers concert at Glasgow City Halls in June, 1977.

Stranglers: threat to public order?

Back then, the council was rather twitchy about the whole punk rock thing. Like many Scottish cities at the time, there was a solvent abuse problem in Glasgow and The Ramones singing about wanting to sniff some glue was a cause for alarm in some quarters.

As a result, several councillors headed along to this Stranglers gig to see if punk rock really was a threat to public order.

The gig confirmed all their suspicions. There was a stage invasion which the councillors construed as a riot.

The result? Punk rock was effectively banned from the city. Anyone looking for their punk rock kicks had to head out to the Bungalow or Disco Harry’s Punk Rock Night at the Silver Thread Hotel, both in Paisley.

Our tour guest had been at the gig and managed to snap off a couple of pictures. They are pretty dark but then it was the Seventies…

If you want to hear more stories, come out on our Glasgow tours. Or you could book in for our Edinburgh Music Tours which launch on Saturday 16th June.