Did you know that when JFK was shot, everyone’s favourite pretend mandolin player, John Peel, was also in Dallas at the time? He didn’t witness the shooting (he was on the lavatory) but he did witness the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald, with Jack Ruby close by.
Me? Thanks for asking. My story is nearly as astonishing. While looking through You Tube for lectures on Philosophy for my thesis, I chanced upon this clip of Bob Carolgees and Spit the Dog. I’d seen it before (years ago) – but still thoroughly enjoyed it. I then realised that the other guest in the clip was Twiggy – and then it dawned on me that I actually attended that very recording of Aspel and Company in 1985. That’s me you can hear (among others) laughing at Spit doing press-ups!
It’s the only TV show recording I have been to. Cliff was also performing – swaying and miming to one of his songs. As such, it’s a neat little time capsule of the kind of nonsense that passed for entertainment in those days.
So that’s my story. What amazing things have you witnessed with your own peepers?
I never realized before what a debonair man Michael Aspel was/is. (Is he still alive?)
PS. Twiggy seems fun!
Check out Mike clothed in double denim discussing punk with The Damned and Jonathan King. It’s on YouTube I think.
When Beckham put the penalty in against Argentina in Sapporo in 2002 he ran towards the corner flag where I was standing.
Cool – my football one was being there when Woking beat West Brom in the cup.
I’m a Woking boy #COYC
Did you go to that WBA game too?
No, I was in Bristol at Uni where by the Grace of God I began supporting the mighty Bristol Rovers. But I always look out for the Woking result. Hard times at the moment tho, one point off the drop.
I was pretty impressed about how assured Bob C was, given that, lets face it, he only barely had what you could call an act.
I know! I think that’s partly why I enjoyed the clip so much.
Now that is spoooky. I’ve had this bootleg DVD of Faces performances for ages and finally got around to watching it just today. Watching Top Of The Pops I remarked to myself -that’s John Peel “playing” mandolin on Maggie May.
Never seen it before.
Very spooky indeed. Yes – it was a reference to the TOTP clip that you saw today.
I saw it on Top of the Pops when it was in the charts. #ancient
Not me, but I found out yesterday that Mr B was in the crowd outside the Apple building 48 years ago yesterday when ver Fabs were doing their thing on the roof. Seems he was off school and in town nearby for an eye test and heard the commotion from a couple of streets away. By coincidence I’d just finished watching Eight Days A Week (which of course ends with the rooftop gig) when he told me, after hearing it was the anniversary.
…and he has just shared that with you now?? Mark Lewisohn is bound to be in touch soon.
Johnny Concheroovygroovymeister was in the street for that one too. No matter what anyone else posts, JC will have a dozen stories to top them, trust me!
I am in the audience at this GMTV “gig” at Glasgow’s Celtic Park. It was part of their week-long Get Up And Give Appeal. I was there because our charity, Vision Aid, was one of the five organisations benefitting from all the fundraising. I stayed in the hotel overlooking the SECC the night before and Aerosmith were also there, enjoying the bar facilities.
I was originally trying to find a clip from the following day at the Granada Studios Tour when the show came live from our charity’s 10th birthday party. Sarah Brightman was one of the performers and I can be spotted having breakfast with the Duke of Westminster. Was it really 20 years ago. Damn.
STOP PRESS: here is the beginning of the Tuesday show! My daughter is in the Vision Aid crowd being greeted by Mr Telly Wonk at around 1:35. Most of the clip is news footage for some reason.
There was a guy on the old Word board (I can’t remember who) who claimed that he was present at the Opera House in Cologne on 24 January 1975, when Keith Jarrett recorded the Köln Concert.
Of course, there’s no way of knowing whether the guy was just bullshitting or not, but if that was actually true, I’m fairly impressed, really.
I remember that post .
The melody KJ returns to was a play on the notes played prior to the concert to advise patrons to take their seats.Dunno whether the poster noted this or I read it somewhere.
In January 2003 I took my son, then aged 11, and a total cricket fanatic, to the SCG to watch England play Australia. The Ashes had already been won but SW had been out of form and there were rumblings about his place in the side. He hit a four off the last over over of the day to make a century, and it came straight towards us, we were right on the mid-wicket boundary.
Everyone stood up and cheered and yelled, including us, and as my son stood on his seat, the old bloke behind me noticed he was wearing odd socks and said “there you go, you made it happen, he wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t worn odd socks”
You don’t see us, but here’s the highlights, last ball at about 7.54
I was there for this:
…and this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjSDvdgTOzg
I also attended a number of less enjoyable Ashes tests in the intervening years.
We were in the old Stowe Corner grandstand at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix in 1999. Michael Schumacher ploughed straight into the crash barrier a few rows in front of us, and broke his leg.
A couple of football memories…
I was there when this went in:
I was also there to watch Thierry Henry score numerous outstanding goals, including this one (although his second half performance against Liverpool in April 2004 is the one that will live longest in the memory):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qy5iZh86e4
I was also at the Emirates in March 2010 to watch the greatest performance I’ve ever seen from a football team. Barcelona, in their absolute pomp, simply dismantled Arsenal in the first half. They were like nothing I’d seen before or have seen since; their speed, precision and aggression took the breath away, football from another dimension.
We somehow managed to claw the game back and claim a draw, but that opening 45 minutes was the greatest display of football I ever expect to see: the likes of Messi, Xavi, Busquets and the remarkable Dani Alves, all at or around their peak. No team in the world could have lived with them at that stage, and it was only dumb luck that kept the score down. It was like watching a loved one take the most beautiful shoeing ever doled out, and I still get a little misty eyed thinking about it.
A football one from me. I was at Highfield Road in 1990 to see Liverpool beat Coventry 6-1. At the time it was run-of-the-mill brilliant – not Barca standards but brilliant. Has since become significant as the last game of a Liverpool championship season – a record which I fear will not be beaten this season.
I was stood directly behind the Arsenal goal when Michael Thomas scored the goal that clinched them the title in 1989. And I mean directly behind the goal, i.e. not in the crowd on the Kop, for I was in the St John Ambulance and had gone over to help with a young lady who had stopped breathing. A couple of my colleagues had got there before me, so I was just standing around, not really needed (the girl very quickly came round). I heard the gasp from the Kop and turned round just in time to see the goal go in at the other end. When I turned back round the expressions on the faces in the Kop had changed considerably from the ones that had been singing a few seconds ago.
Incidentally, if you had never been to Anfield when the Kop was standing, it was a pretty horrible place to be. I stood on it the once and ended up around 30 yards from where I started, after all the pushing and swaying. As a Barnsley fan you rarely got to stand in such a big crowd! But when someone was in need of first aid treatment, as it was impossible for you to make your way through the crowd to get to anybody the fans used to send the person down over their heads, whilst those around waved frantically until us in the corner noticed. It was a pretty amazing sight to see.
I was still also in the Sheffield St John Ambulance at the time and was back home in Barnsley at the time of the Hillsborough disaster a month earlier. In fact, I was supposed to be there on duty, but the morning of the match I called one of the senior St John Ambulance team (who happened to be my mum) and asked whether we had enough members to cover the game, which we did, as we had a dozen or so above the minimum that had to be there. So I said I wouldn’t be attending, because Barnsley were at home to Birmingham City and I felt bad not going to see Barnsley in favour of some poxy FA Cup semi-final that I had been to the previous two years at Hillsborough. All I can say is it’s no fun getting home and seeing your mum, your girlfriend and your mates on TV trying to resuscitate people when you should have been there to help. I have felt a mixture of guilt and relief ever since, although my mum, who went through some terrible times immediately in the aftermath and again recently when she had to give evidence at the inquest, is most certainly glad that I wasn’t there.
Amazing stuff, on multiple levels.
A good friend of mine (Gooner) was in the away end at Anfield that night. I can only imagine.
Crikey. I appear to have dust in my eye.
I was watching MTV at 3.00am in my flat in Brighton in October 1984 when the windows suddenly rattled and the curtains bulged. “What was that?” I asked my flatmate. “Probably a bomb,” he replied, taking another toke.
I was behind the goal in Lisbon 2004 when Zidane puked on the pitch and won it with a penalty, after England had been ahead after 90 minutes. Henry, who’d been taking stick from the England fans, ignored his teammates’ celebrations and ran the touchline with his finger to his lips.
June 18, 1982. Estadio Benito VillamarÃn, Seville. David Narey ‘toe-poke’. Sat directly behind me was a snarling, totally engaged Sean Connery and with him, incongruously but utterly magnificently, a so-drunk-he-couldn’t-bite-his-fingernails, Donald Pleasance.
A few years ago I was on a business trip to Newcastle. Stayed at the Malmaison hotel. At three o clock in the morning the fire alarm goes off. I scramble out of bed and wind up freezing outside the hotel for 15 mins or so, cursing away with the other guests. The next morning I read in the paper about Paul Gascoigne’s drunken rampage in a hotel in Newcastle…
After England went out of Euro 96 I was in the subsequent riot in Trafalgar Square. At the time I didn’t realise I was in a riot, but that was the papers said the next day, so it must be true.
What sort of degenerate life must you lead when you no longer even realise when you’re rioting. For shame, Kid. For shame.
ENGLAND’S SHAME
At 0.34 on this clip, I can be heard shouting ‘Only A Prawn In Whitby.’
I was in the audience for this talk/music show, with presenter Gerry Anderson on BBC NI in 1991, with Bert Jansch & Peter Kirtley (whooping at the end). In fact, I was inadvertently responsible for what they played. I knew one of the researchers on it and when he mentioned that Bert had been booked for the show (he was ‘around’, touring Ireland at the time) and that the rest of it would be Elvis Presley themed (with one of Elvis’ Memphis hangers-on plus, er, Gary Glitter) I said, ‘Oh, Bert does a cover of ‘Heartbreak Hotel’…’ And thus it was that Bert – who had recorded it back in 1982 and possibly not played it since – with his new guitar partner Pete Kirtley, had to relearn the tune with a couple of days’ notice. Turned out pretty good, though, didn’t it?
I can be heard shouting “I’m Spartacus” on the ISIHAC dvd recorded at the Lowry. Humph’s last.
Not top notch amazing but I was cycling home a while back and came across a busker who turned out to be Frank Black. If this video posts correctly I’m behind him in the high-vis strap – safety first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rdu0Wd0DJx4
Aged 9, I was at Wembley in 1973 for the Sunderland vs Leeds FA Cup final. This clip is really worth watching, for Brian Moore’s commentary, Jimmy Hill’s disbelief at Jim Montgomery’s impossible save, Bob Stokoe’s raincoat and trilby, Vic Halom’s shoulder-charge, and for the Ian Porterfield interview: ‘It’s the first time I ever felt emotion in my life’
Every time I see anything of that game, the tears can’t be stopped. NB this is because go being a Sunderland fan, rather than a follower of Dirty Leeds.
Little known fact. Bobby Kerr went on to even greater success as the singer with Boston
The pipe bomb launched from a van on Whitehall into the garden of 10 Downing Street, early ’90’s.
I worked at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in those days, in a small registry overlooking St James’s Park. At the time of the attack I was in the basement and missed the explosion. I came back up to our office to find my female colleague in tears and the weighted blast curtain over the open window billowing into the room.
Less thrllingly, a few years later I was in the studio audience for the recording of the first episode of none more shit sitcom ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme’. 3 hours of warmup (Jo Caulfield), set up take and re-take. The best bits by far were the fluffs made by Kathy Burke and James Dreyfus. They were marvellous; piss taking each other with great brio. The actual show was a turd. I hated it. Nonetheless, I believe I am the first guffaw heard in the very final scene when James Dreyfus is punched in the face.
The first Rock Goes To College. I was wandering round back-stage as part of the student contingent of the crew as this these forgotten Canuck Metal merchants played up front. Spent most of the day helping the drummer polish his cymbals, fnar fnar
Dear me, it would be hard for any songwriter to come up with anything more Spinal Tap than that.
I’d hardly call April Wine, “Metal”. 😂
Still going strong over here btw.
I April Wine qualify Bri. They were featured regularly in the early Kerrangs, along with other Division Two metal bands like Molly Hatchet, Krokus, Triumph and Blackfoot.
I never realized there were divisions ?
Of course there were divisions! Don’t you remember the Uriah Heep – Budgie relegation dogfight of 1978/79?
Happy days. They ended up in the play offs with Weapon, Mama’s Boys and Quartz next season, didn’t they?
In those days, there simply weren’t that many metal bands so Kerrang had to make up the numbers by including the likes of April Wine, Loverboy, Legs Diamond etc. And April Wine were more melodic rock fellow travellers than heavily metallic really, weren’t they?
I must confess though, I actually did see them on that tour – and I still have the patch to prove it! I only went because Diamond Head were supporting them though.
Forgotten? April Wine… I think not.
They had a song called ” If you see Kay” didn’t they?
Bit similar to some other entries. I was Christmas shopping on Oxford St Dec 1983 with a friend, we decided to go to Harrods. On the walk there I met a girl, Greta, I knew from (Liverpool) Uni by total chance who I had always fancied and decided to go to a pub instead. On the way into the pub we heard the explosion (at Harrods). On that day we had expected a bomb to go off (there was a “Christmas campaign”) and weren’t surprised thinking it was probably controlled after an evacuation. So we continued into the pub and had a few drinks and some food, me getting on very well with Greta.
When we left we discovered complete panic in the streets and decided to get out of central London, one tube station was closed so we walked to another one, it was complete chaos in there and I got separated from Greta. She had told me she was going to India for a while. I never saw her again…
You should have said you were a bit of a Goa, nudge-nudge-wink-wink.
Heh heh, trouble is she was gone to Goa before I knew it. One day I will get over it 😉
In July 1982 I was cajoled into playing tennis each week with some work colleagues in Regents Park. On the 20th we had courts booked for 12.30 and I made my way reluctantly out to the park. I was a dreadful tennis player and knew it would be another hour of piss taking. On the way over I sat down at the band stand as I could see there was going to be a concert. I was tempted to stay and would have just sat there but my then boss spotted me and made me move on. Not long after we started our game the bandstand was blown up in an IRA attack and seven guardsmen died. In subsequent years I discovered that the bomb seemed to have been designed to target the army musicians, but not the people watching
On a lighter note I was at this match – one of the best goals ever
And this one – an epic turnaround, and a typical day at work for Di Canio
As you’ve mentioned Di Canio, I was there for his peerless act of sportsmanship when he caught the ball rather than score while our goalkeeper Paul Gerrard lay stricken. (I think he tore knee ligaments).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jKos-unoW4
If we go for sporting events I was at the 1979 5 nations game as a pimply 16 yr old when Wales trounced England 27-3 for their 4th successive triple crown. Little was I to know that it was the end of an era and the next 26 years there would be just one more. Things got better after that though…
i saw Llanethli beat the All Blacks I was very young, but remember my dad’s astonishment.
Recorded at Granada TV Studios in Manchester. I am nodding appreciatively in the audience, probably aged 17 at the time.
I assume you were actually there for the headline act – Freddie “Parrot Face!” Davis ?
It was a whole show of Argent and it’s now available on DVD. Honest!
I did sit in for a recording of 3-2-1 with Ted Rogers but that’s another story.
It’s Dusty Beany!
You and your bloody Freddie “Parrot Face” Davis!
I’m thick, thick, thick up to here with your inthinuations.
I once spent a morning in the Tiswas cage. I’d been out with a bunch of mates the Friday night/Saturday morning. On the way home, in the early hours, fully refreshed, we passed the ATV studios, queued up and got in. This would have been before Christmas 1978, maybe.
I remember very little about it other than getting drenched and flanned constantly. The water was thrown with shocking force. Frank Carson never stopped talking and messing about with John Gorman. Sally James kept her distance. Chris Tarrant was very much like a school-master. If Bob Carolgees or Lenny Henry were there, I didn’t notice.
We walked home shivering in the cold, as we never got dried off properly and had no money for a taxi. Still, we survived, but I doubt we would have done without the previous night’s refreshment.
Sleaford Mods – Tiswas
Very jealous. The cage people were never explained – just random victims there for the soaking. Hopefully you got to shout Compost Corner! a few times.
I went to the see the Tiswas tour when it came to St George’s Hall, Bradford. They had the cage onstage and volunteers previously arranged by the venue were lined up backstage to go in. At the last moment they grabbed the venue manager, resplendent in tuxedo, and dragged him in with them. He got drenched but tried his best to climb out of the cage throughout the evening.
Grapple me grape-nuts!
I once saw Bob Carol Gees and Chris Tarrant going into a first floor apartment in Salford Keys.
In Salford Keys there is also a brothel in a first floor apartment.
These two facts are of course completely unrelated.
A different kind of custard pie.
(Sorry)
Piffle. That’s also where the Phantom Flan Flinger lives.
Or is it the Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town?
Or maybe the dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler.
Of Bexhill on Sea.
Sapristi!
Perhaps they were there to “spit the dog”.
(Sorry)
I was at the old Wembley Stadium in 1989 to see my team (Sheffield Eagles) beat the mighty Wigan as the longest odds winners in the history of the RL Challenge Cup Final.
At half time we were leading and said to each other (my Dad and I), “Well, at least we won’t have been humiliated when they come back at us in the second half”.
It was only when Mark Aston was announced as the Lance Todd Trophy winner that I realised we were in with a chance of winning and only in the last two minutes that I realised we would.
My Dad’s died since but our occasional trips to big rugby matches remain a treasured memory with this one at the top of the pile.
1998 surely? I was manager on duty at a nursing home in Sheffield that Saturday afternoon, we broke out the beer in celebration that night!