Ever wondered what it would look and sound like if some musicians, having taken full advantage of the hospitality on offer at the TV studio for a few hours beforehand, finally got the green light to perform just after 3am?
Rock Around The Clock was a great idea, worth the price of a TV licence on its own. Once a year, beginning on a Saturday afternoon, the entire schedule of BBC 2 would, for 15 consecutive hours, be devoted to pop music in all its various guises. There would be live concerts from various locations (one year, Glasgow Barrowlands was the venue for an afternoon show by Aztec Camera and an evening performance by The Cure) interviews, feature films, videos (with the viewers being asked to call in and cast votes for their favourites from a long list) and studio performances, often of an unusual nature…..which is why the Bunnymen and Billy Bragg ended up performing a Velvet Underground song in the middle of the night when only the most deranged and craziest of fans were still wide awake and watching. Yup, I was one of them.
There’s a number of YouTube locations that have this clip…..you’ll have spotted I’ve pinched this one from the Bunnymen/McCulloch channel.
mp3 : The Velvet Underground – Run Run Run
mp3 : Echo & The Bunnymen – Run Run Run (live in Gothenburg, 25 April 1985)
tv licence?
Yup. It’s a UK thing. It’s what basically funds the BBC and keeps it free of advertising.
“A TV Licence is required if you watch or record live TV on any channel or service, or use the BBC iPlayer.
“You do not need a TV Licence to watch streaming services like Netflix and Disney Plus, on-demand TV through services like All 4 and Amazon Prime Video, videos on websites like YouTube or videos or DVDs.
“A TV Licence costs £180 for both homes and businesses.”
I remember Edwyn Collins and Paul Quinn performing another Velvet Underground track on Rock Around The Clock in 1984. They did “Pale Blue Eyes”. It was a fine performance. New Order minced around the BBC sub-basement and disappointed.
This is the stuff- wonderful. Late night music tv was a highlight of the past
I saw the Bunnymen play Gothenburg this very gig where they supporter themselves by playing a set of covers first, then come back i and play their own songs. I have the bootleg album still, a gig high on my ranking list over best concerra I’ve been to.