The Screen on the Green

The Story

This cinema in Islington is still standing and still shows films. On August 29, 1976, Malcolm McLaren rented the space and organized the Midnight Special. A show that started at midnight and went on until dawn, with a £1 ticket. It was the first time that Sex Pistols, The Clash, and Buzzcocks played together on the same stage. It was The Clash's second public show under that name. For the Buzzcocks, it was their first trip to London. Malcolm McLaren wanted to prove that three bands were a movement, and he succeeded. The concert poster, designed by Helen Wellington-Lloyd with cutout letters, was the first time this visual style appeared in the Sex Pistols' universe, a direct precursor to what Jamie Reid would do on the cover of Never Mind the Bollocks. Charles Shaar Murray's review for NME, published two weeks later, was one of the first to bring British punk into the mainstream music press.

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