Nostalgia - Radio 1 Road Show - Smiley Miley

guitars4you

Who remembers the days of summer holidays in the 70's and 80's and the Radio 1 Road Show - Smiley Miley + Bits n Pieces quiz - When they would tour sea side resorts around the UK

Anyone actually go to any on these shows

p90fool

It was fucking awful, an absolute low point in our cultural history.

munckee

My dad used to work for a motor caravan company who leased vehicles to radio one, we met smiley miley and someone else I had never heard of and got loads of tshirts, stickers caps, badges etc, this would have been 83/4 I think.

Offset

It's a period on our cultural landscape best left undisturbed.  Otherwise images of Gary Davies, DLT, Simon Bates and all the other smug, up-their-own-arse farm-owning gropers will flood back.

EricTheWeary

I did see one. I’m struggling to think where it was but I was on holiday and the roadshow turned up one day. Mike Read played a few songs with his band ( I remember Spirit in the Sky) before they joined the broadcast and he talked to people and played records. I don’t think I watched all of it and was a long way away. It was reasonably uninteresting. On the radio it sounded kinda fun but the reality of standing at the back of a big crowd in the heat wasn’t great.

I did see a Beacon Radio roadshow in Wolverhampton once and got to see Clare Grogan from a few feet away whilst she talked to the DJ. 

TheOtherDennis

On the very first series of that, Johnnie Walker brought the road show to my then home town of Helensburgh. About 200 people attended, including my then very early teenage self, and the crowd gradually thinned out across the two hour show.

Later in the 80s (didn't see that one, because I'd left home several years before), they came back and apparently drew well into the thousands.

Neither time was the show particularly interesting, but then it was the 70s/80s music of the type being played by Radio 1, so what would anyone expect?

Kilgore

I went to one in 80/81? I can't remember where. It was really hot and I got a Radio 1 T shirt. That's all I can remember. 

Grumpyrocker

 An excuse for some high paid nonces to tour the provinces looking for underage victims.

SPECTRUM001

I was quite entranced by the road shows in the seventies, also with Capital Radio's summer (Levis sponsored) appearances in Selfridges.

Around 1981 I was doing some kitchen work in Windsor and Mike Read was DJing the evening party. I was pretty excited, as at the time he was playing some good stuff on his Radio One show.

Boy was he a let down - played crappy pop funk and was arrogant to boot. I got drunk, and as a result told him I had "put something in" his dinner.

Offset

SPECTRUM001 said:

I was quite entranced by the road shows in the seventies, also with Capital Radio's summer (Levis sponsored) appearances in Selfridges.

Around 1981 I was doing some kitchen work in Windsor and Mike Read was DJing the evening party. I was pretty excited, as at the time he was playing some good stuff on his Radio One show.

Boy was he a let down - played crappy pop funk and was arrogant to boot. I got drunk, and as a result told him I had "put something in" his dinner.

Attaboy.  And I hope you really HAD put something in his dinner...

Philly_Q

I think the Radio 1 Road Show did come to Swansea once - on one of the many beaches, presumably - but I didn't go to see it.

I did like the Bits & Pieces quiz.  I always like a quiz.

jonnyburgo

I vaguely remember going to one in late 70s. Seem to remember t shirts getting thrown about and some skinheads pushing through the crowd but thats about it really.

Funkfingers

I vaguely remember the BBC once presenting a Radio 1 Roadshow as a television "simulcast" on a Saturday. It was pants.

When one is young, there might be some appeal in the idea of getting one's name mentioned on live national radio. As one matures, this idea becomes irretrievably naff.

Throw in the revelation that several of the DJ presenters and their special guests turned out to be either gropers or statutory rapists and the whole enterprise looks seriously creepy.

Emp_Fab

Philly_Q said:

I think the Radio 1 Road Show did come to Swansea once - on one of the many beaches, presumably - but I didn't go to see it.

I did like the Bits & Pieces quiz.  I always like a quiz.

It certainly came to the Leisure Centre car park.  I dunno about the beaches.  I was there as... wait for it....  an assistant to a hospital radio DJ's assistant!  That's about as low down the chain as it gets  

JezWynd

p90fool said:

It was fucking awful, an absolute low point in our cultural history.

Spot on. And it's just reminded me of Simon Bates and Our Tune. 'Scuse me, I have to vomit.

Philly_Q

Emp_Fab said:

Philly_Q said:

I think the Radio 1 Road Show did come to Swansea once - on one of the many beaches, presumably - but I didn't go to see it.

I did like the Bits & Pieces quiz.  I always like a quiz.

It certainly came to the Leisure Centre car park.  I dunno about the beaches.  I was there as... wait for it....  an assistant to a hospital radio DJ's assistant!  That's about as low down the chain as it gets  

Any idea what year that would have been?  I left Swansea in 1982, the "new" leisure centre and the Quadrant centre had been going for a few years before then, I guess now they're probably rubble...

Dominic

Grumpyrocker said:

 An excuse for some high paid nonces to tour the provinces looking for underage victims.

Now then,Now then ,Now then ....

Dominic

They always went to shithole places like Clacton or Skegness .............never made it to Salcombe

jonnyburgo

JezWynd said:

p90fool said:

It was fucking awful, an absolute low point in our cultural history.

Spot on. And it's just reminded me of Simon Bates and Our Tune. 'Scuse me, I have to vomit.

(In the voice of SImes) "We've changed the names in this weeks story to protect their idendidees" Utter twaddle, guys at a place I worked would fall silent for this daily dose of shite.

Iamnobody

Being a very young child in the 80s I remember these and also remember them being a big deal in our otherwise neglected part of the north east coastline. 

The sort of thing kids would actually look forward to...

TheOtherDennis

jonnyburgo said:

JezWynd said:

p90fool said:

It was fucking awful, an absolute low point in our cultural history.

Spot on. And it's just reminded me of Simon Bates and Our Tune. 'Scuse me, I have to vomit.

(In the voice of SImes) "We've changed the names in this weeks story to protect their idendidees" Utter twaddle, guys at a place I worked would fall silent for this daily dose of shite.

He unquestionably milked it, but I also remember an interview with him in the mid-80s where he was asked why he did it, and he said "Because I can't not do it. We try to kill it off at least once a year by giving it a 'break' and hoping everyone will forget about it but then we get literally thousands of letters wanting it to return. And it keeps me in a job*, so, hey."

*Until eventually in 1990 it didn't.