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Exceedingly rare original 21 x 30.75 concert poster for the Sex Pistols at Club Du Chalet Du Lac in Paris, France, on September 3, 1976. The controversial poster features blue stencil-style text, a central pink guitar shape, and a series of four images of a nude boy smoking a cigarette. Text above reads: “London’s most notorious band!” Rolled and in very good condition, with folds and creases, light stains, tack holes, and a small area of edge loss. Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Tracks. Only 100 copies are believed to have been printed, with just a scant few surviving in the decades since the concert.
Manager Malcolm McLaren devised the provocative ‘smoking boy’ motif in November 1975 for an early Sex Pistols t-shirt sold at his King’s Road boutique, Sex. Interviewed by Paul Gorman in 2008, McLaren recalled: ‘This was my first attempt at making a Sex Pistols t-shirt…I wanted to create something of a stir…the way this boy stood with his cigarette could look like a smoking gun.’ The image, sourced from a gay magazine, was paired with a guitar outline based on Glen Matlock’s bass. When Bernie Rhodes refused to print it, McLaren pressured Matlock—then an art student at Saint Martin’s—to produce a small run, reportedly no more than 40 shirts, many distributed to promote the band. As shown here, the design was later adapted into a poster for the band’s September 1976 Chalet du Lac performances. During production, Rhodes attempted to obscure parts of the image with lettering, later remarking, ‘Malcolm likes to titillate, but I like to get down to substance.’
The Sex Pistols’ two performances at the Chalet du Lac on September 3 and 5, 1976, marked their first international shows, spotlighting both their rising notoriety – just months before the release of their debut single – and the growing influence of British punk abroad. The venue, newly refurbished from a disco into a live music club, reopened on September 3rd with a free event that drew more than 2,000 people, including regular clubgoers and members of the Bromley Contingent who had traveled from London, among them Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin, and Billy Idol.
Booked by photographer and promoter Pierre Bénain – tasked with finding the most fashionable British band – the Sex Pistols arrived late after their equipment was lost at Heathrow, forcing them to begin after midnight without a soundcheck. Opening with ‘Anarchy in the U.K.,’ they delivered a notoriously chaotic performance, with reportedly poor sound prompting the club owner to try to halt the show after just a few songs. Though reactions were mixed, the shock of this raw, confrontational style proved electrifying, helping ignite the early French punk scene; a second performance on the afternoon of September 5th was recorded and later circulated as a bootleg.
