My Night at a TV Studio Live Show

Aged sixteen, I had been a guest at the children’s home where I'd been sent for persistent truancy for exactly two months. when an unexpected night out presented itself. At breakfast one morning, a buzz of excitement ran through the dining room at the news that two female residents had been rushed to hospital the previous night following an incident which, if memory serves, involved nail polish remover.

The girls’ hospitalisation came on the day of the older one’s sixteenth birthday, and to mark the the occasion, a special treat had been laid on for the birthday girl and two of her female friends: a trip to the recording of an episode of The Geordie Scene in Newcastle, with coach transportation laid on. Whether or not the girls would have recovered in time to attend the event didn’t matter, as they would have forfeited the treat anyway as punishment for their dangerous deed.

Iconic venue

The Geordie Scene was a live music show that ran from 1974 to 1976, and was recorded in the old Tyne Tees Television studios that stood on City Road in Newcastle; the very same studios that would later become the iconic venue for the cult show The Tube, featuring a young Jools Holland. The Geordie Scene was at the vanguard of televised pop music at the time, as it often featured acts playing live rather than lip-synching as they did on most shows like Top of the Pops.

Some of the biggest acts of the day played The Geordie Scene, including The Sweet, Mud, Dr. Feelgood, and local band Geordie, fronted by Brian Johnson in his pre-AC/DC days.

In the afternoon, when my classmates and I returned from the school annex, a staff member told us there were three tickets for a trip to The Geordie Scene going spare. The girl who had been earmarked to make up the trio with the two absentees said she didn’t want to go as the only female, so three boys were sought to attend the event. As the oldest, I was first to be asked, and I said I’d go along.

Tartan trousers

I ran upstairs to the dormitory, where I swapped my wretched school uniform for my street clothes. Five minutes later, I was togged out in Doctor Marten boots, shortened red tartan trousers, and a black Fred Perry v-neck jumper. I considered my clobber a fine visual representation of my grandma’s old saying that smart boys don’t grow on gooseberry bushes, but staff didn’t share that view and I was told to put my uniform back on, minus the tie.

I had a proper teenage strop about that instruction. I loved my tartan pants, which I’d bought second-hand from an ex-skinhead for four quid a few months earlier, and I thought they went very well sandwiched between the black jumper and boots. But resistance was futile, so off they came, and with my charcoal grey trousers and brown v-neck jumper back on, I was the very picture of disgruntlement as I waited with my friends for the coach to arrive.

From what I had observed over the two months I’d been at the home, neither of my accomplices on the trip had shown much interest in music but were keen to go along for the experience. With the three of us kitted out in the uniform as previously described, it was hard for me to bear the thought that everyone at the event would be dressed in their wildest and snazziest outfits for the benefit of the TV cameras, while we three would turn up looking like a Bachelors tribute act.

On the coach, I retrieved a squashed cigarette packet from down my sock and lit up. I thought it odd that those who arranged the trip would hire a 50-seater coach for three people, but we picked up about twenty others from a youth club in a nearby village.

And I was glad we did, because there used to be a free bus from my home town to that very youth club every Thursday night, which I and some friends regularly took advantage of so I knew some of those who boarded. They were flush with cigarettes, and so we chatted and smoked together.

Chopper motorcycle

Inside the studio, I was pleased to see that the guy running the pre-gig disco was a football hero of mine, Paul Cannell, a striker for Newcastle United at the time. We still didn’t know which act we were about to see, but a chopper motorcycle reposed on the stage.

The guy in charge briefed us on what would happen when things started, emphasising that the best way to get seen on TV when the show was broadcast was to dance, dance, dance. He also warned us to be wary of the enormous cameras moving around. “If you get in their way,” he said, “they aren’t going to stop.”

And so, the big reveal came, and the band we would see was Hello. Not up there with Slade and Bowie on my list of favourites, but I did like the band, particularly their single New York Groove, which still pops up on my shuffle now and then all these years later.

Had I been dressed in my street clothes, I might have joined in the dancing and got myself on TV, but at sixteen, reputation is everything and I didn’t want to be seen as The Man from Dullsville right across the region, so I avoided the cameras as much as I could.

The studio was packed, the band played well, and the show went to air several weeks later, by which time I had left school and was back under the parental roof.

Bath, supper, bed

On the way home from the gig, I smoked a last cigarette, and then the hair we had let down for the night was tied up as we slotted back into the old routine of bath, supper, bed. But it had definitely been a worthwhile endeavour.

I’ve hunted online for footage of the Hello episode of The Geordie Scene, and while there are many clips from other shows, that one seems to be missing. And that’s a shame because it would be fun to try to spot myself in the crowd all those years ago, in my brown jumper, dodging the cameras.

If you’d like to get a feel for what The Geordie Scene was about, there are many clips available on YouTube. I recommend Dr Feelgood.

Here’s a video of Hello doing New York Groove on another TV show from that year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtzdigGGZys