River Thames — Sex Pistols Silver Jubilee Boat Trip

On 7 June 1977 — the day of Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee river pageant — Malcolm McLaren chartered a boat called the Queen Elizabeth, loaded it with the Sex Pistols, their entourage, and assorted journalists and industry figures, and sailed down the Thames playing 'God Save the Queen' and other tracks from the band's debut album. The police pursued the boat and eventually boarded it at the Victoria Embankment. McLaren and several others, including Vivienne Westwood, were arrested. The Pistols themselves were not among those detained. The stunt was a masterpiece of provocative theatre and ensured that 'God Save the Queen' — already banned by the BBC and most commercial radio stations — remained front-page news.

'God Save the Queen' had been released on 27 May 1977, two weeks before the Jubilee, and Virgin Records and the band claimed it reached number one despite the BBC ban and what they alleged was chart manipulation by the industry to prevent it from officially topping the chart during Jubilee week. Whether the chart was genuinely rigged remains disputed, but the song indisputably outsold the official chart-topper and the controversy around its suppression became part of its mythology. The lyrics — 'God save the Queen / the fascist regime / they made you a moron' — were not subtle, and their timing with the Jubilee celebrations was entirely deliberate.

The stretch of the Thames near Hungerford Bridge and the Victoria Embankment is where the police boarding and arrests took place. The river itself was lined with Jubilee revellers as the Pistols' boat passed. The event is commemorated on the Victoria Embankment by nothing at all — no plaque, no marker — but it remains one of the most perfectly executed provocations in the history of British popular music.