Post by johnreardon on Nov 9, 2020 9:54:44 GMT
Back in 2015, I got contacted by a producer who was doing some work for the BBC. He had come across our band on YouTube and wanted to know if we were interested in appearing in a a sort of documentary to find the 'Best' UK bands. After some hesitation from me, because I didn't like entering these sort of talent things, he explained it wasn't going to be like that as there would be real musicians presenting alongside a Welsh comedian called Rhod Gilbert. I said I would let him know after speaking to rest of band. They all agreed to give it a go.
Anyway, after a few Skype calls with the producer and the band, we found ourselves in a local club, in Dec 2015, being filmed in front of Midge Ure & Rhod Gilbert. We had to play one cover and an original, multiple times so the crew could get the sound levels right. I must say, we didn't make any cock-ups, as the two we were doing, were played every gig of ours. The cover was the one we always opened gigs with, 'I Wish You Would' an old Billy Boy Arnold song done by the Yardbirds. The original was one from our album called 'I Need Someone', which was one we had written in 66 and just updated.
After the show was broadcast in June 2016 on BBC4, I noticed that Rhod Gilbert was going to be on the Graham Norton Show later that night. I don't watch Graham Norton, but I decided to take a look as no doubt Rhod would be talking about the show. I was gobsmacked when my ugly mug came up playing harmonica at the club performance. So as well as the 330,000 viewers that would have seen us on BBC4, we now were on national TV in front of 3-4 million viewers.
This is what they showed on the Graham Norton show. Note there is some language in the videos, but it's what they showed on TV.
This is part of what they showed on BBC4
This video contains pics taken by a pro photographer at the show with the two songs we played that night, 'Hoochie Coochie Man' and another original 'Judgement Day. The audio of Hoochie was taken by one of our friends in front of the stage. Unfortunately he didn't record the second song, so I have used the audio from our album
Incidentally we didn't make it through to the 'final' held later. There was another band of 10 people like us, who played Ska. They were very good and the BBC selected them and a small band. I was told afterwards that the BBC didn't want two large bands at the final, they wanted a mix. To be honest, we didn't care as the two days we spent filming in Belfast were horrendously long and tiring.
The guitar I used was my R9 Stanleyburst Yamano. In fact 3 of the guitars used in the videos were mine. The Hamer Cruise bass & the PRS SIII, now sold. The other LP looking guitar is a Zemaitis owned by the chap who plays it.
