The Friday Rock Show

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Rob1742Rob1742 Frets: 1028
Anyone used to listen to Tommy Vance on a Friday night in the 80’s? 

Well if it was your thing and you have fond memories, there is an archive out there and you can listen again.

I found it on Wednesday when I was searching for an old band called Severed Head that I really liked.

Ended up listening to an old show from 1983 for a couple of hours. 

I found it insane that he was playing all these new tracks as if it was just a normal Friday night, which it was, but when you listen now you realise how great the new music was back then.

It took me back and was just an incredible few hours. Worth downloading and listening if it was your thing. 
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Comments

  • FunkfingersFunkfingers Frets: 14323
    I was an irregular listener - in both senses of the expression - to TFRS. If something of interest were mentioned as due to be broadcast next week, I would make the effort to tune in. 

    The archive will be a look back into a lost world of music creation. No computerised home studios. No auto-tune. Musicians and singers had to be able to perform in real time. None of yer piecing things together in the edit. Well, not much!

    If I were delving into the archives, the first thing that springs to mind to listen to is Slade at the Reading Festival.
    Be seeing you.
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  • JonathangusJonathangus Frets: 4436
    Regular Friday night listening.  Followed by the Mary Whitehouse Experience.
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    As for "when am I ready?"  You'll never be ready.  It works in reverse, you become ready by doing it.  - pmbomb


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  • BodBod Frets: 1286
    Tommy's voice reminds me of being a kid and travelling in the back of the family car late at night and hearing all those great bands for the first time.  It was pretty much the only way you could listen to rock music in the 80s.  Would love to have another listen.
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  • kaypeejaykaypeejay Frets: 776
    Wasn’t the Friday Night Connection ridiculously convoluted? I don’t think I ever got any of them. It was I just a bit thick?
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  • RobDaviesRobDavies Frets: 3062
    I used to listen on a Friday, with my Dad.   Discovered loads of bands…. Metallica, Sabbat, Agnostic Front etc.  The variety of music Tommy played was incredible - Venom one minute…Bon Jovi the next. 

    I only listened sporadically after I discovered the pub but Dixie Dreggs still gets me in the feels.  
    I met Tommy’s daughter Jess at a Machine Head gig a few years ago.  She is lovely and really touched that I remembered her Dad with such affection.  
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  • TTonyTTony Frets: 27345
    Rob1742 said:
    Anyone used to listen to Tommy Vance on a Friday night in the 80’s? 

    Whilst that is - unarguably - great and full of memories, there’s also a load of John Peel’s evening shows available too.

    :)
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  • scrumhalfscrumhalf Frets: 11262
    Oh for the days when there was decent music on the radio.

    When the atmospherics permitted it I used to listen to Brian Pithers in, I think, Radio 210.
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  • VimFuegoVimFuego Frets: 15476
    scrumhalf said:
    Oh for the days when there was decent music on the radio.

    When the atmospherics permitted it I used to listen to Brian Pithers in, I think, Radio 210.
    actually, I think there is a lot more quality music on the "radio" now than at any time in my life. However, most of it is now web based, you kinda have to know about it. However, I've found that finding it comes from finding a toehold, once you know one good channel, you get to learn of others. In the folk world, I've found tons of stuff from listening to Mike Harding and going to the channels he recommends after he was sacked by R2.

    I'm not locked in here with you, you are locked in here with me.

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  • TTonyTTony Frets: 27345
    VimFuego said:

    actually, I think there is a lot more quality music on the "radio" now than at any time in my life. 
    I think I agree.

    There's more of it, the problem now is finding it and sifting through all the stuff that you don't like.  Also, it tends to be a lot more narrow, in that a niche "station" will be focused on a particular genre (or sub, sub, sub genre) and play little else so you can find something you like and never feel inclined to go anywhere else.  Which is self-limiting.

    JP's shows used to be quite eclectic.  I remember really liking perhaps 25% of what he'd play in an evening, but I'd listen to the whole show (and slowly open my ears to other stuff not initially in that 25%) because it was the only chance I'd have of hearing that 25%.  There was no other similar show, or alternative station back then.

    I think.
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  • exocetexocet Frets: 1948
    I was an irregular listener - in both senses of the expression - to TFRS. If something of interest were mentioned as due to be broadcast next week, I would make the effort to tune in. 

    The archive will be a look back into a lost world of music creation. No computerised home studios. No auto-tune. Musicians and singers had to be able to perform in real time. None of yer piecing things together in the edit. Well, not much!

    If I were delving into the archives, the first thing that springs to mind to listen to is Slade at the Reading Festival.
    I had a recording of Reading 1980 via Friday Night Rock Show. 2 hours worth on TDK C120, therein lies the problem, I wore it out.Along with Slade, I can remember that Def Leppard and Krokus featured.
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  • PolarityManPolarityMan Frets: 7273
    Not in the 80s but used to watch his vh1 show with my dad when I was back from uni. Used to argue over whether 70s or modern rock was better :) he used to at some great stuff.
    ဈǝᴉʇsɐoʇǝsǝǝɥɔဪቌ
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  • bluechargeboybluechargeboy Frets: 1894
    Ha, this takes me back to listening to speed metal on my medium wave radio when my mum thought I was asleep.

    What sticks in the mind is the cool way he said "VOIVOD!" :D
    I'm just a Maserati in a world of Kias.
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  • axisusaxisus Frets: 28280
    edited July 2021
    I would have put money on it being called the Friday Night Rock Show???? Shows how fallible memory can be I guess.

    I loved that show, it was my music bible. I remember Tommy saying "you have to hear this amazing young blues player, sounds like two guitars" He then stuck on Stevie Ray Vaughan's 83 Reading Rock Festival set. I was quick enough to stick a tape in and he became my fave guitarist up until his death.

    I also remember being blown away, possibly the first time I heard the show. Tommy was doing a top ten tracks ever as voted by the listeners. Honestly, my mind was blown by what I heard. I don't remember all the tracks now but it changed my life - Genesis, Supper's Ready, and Rush Xanadu were in there. The opening of Xanadu is incredibly atmospheric, I'd never heard it before. Oh yes, another epic was Yes Awaken. All still some of my favourite music.

    Edit: Just looked up, this was the list 1981 ...
    • 10. (5) "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" - Pink Floyd - from copy of quadrophonic master mixed to stereo
    • 9. (8) "Smoke on the Water" - Deep Purple - from Machine Head
    • 8 (10) "Awaken" - Yes - from Going For the One
    • 7. (4) "Child in Time" - Deep Purple - from Deep Purple in Rock
    • 6. (9) "2112" - Rush - from 2112
    • 5. (7) "Xanadu" - Rush - from Farewell to Kings
    • 4. (6) "Stargazer" - Rainbow - from Rainbow Rising.
    • 3. (3) "Freebird" - Lynyrd Skynyrd - from Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd
    • 2. (2) "Supper's Ready" - Genesis - from Foxtrot
    • 1. (1) "Stairway to Heaven" - Led Zeppelin from Led Zeppelin IV

    For someone who only knew Smoke on the water and Stairway to heaven at the time, this was the most enlightening moment of listening to music ever for me.

    Bloody amazing show.


    Another edit: Just found the SRV recording. This was sooooooo Exciting at the time!


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  • Rob1742Rob1742 Frets: 1028
    axisus said:
    I would have put money on it being called the Friday Night Rock Show???? Shows how fallible memory can be I guess.

    I think you are correct. I think I missed “night” in error 
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  • exocetexocet Frets: 1948
    Thinking about it, the Reading Rock 1980 session on that show would've been the first time that I heard guitar feedback - I can remember how raw and exciting it was. A year later I had my own Marshall JTM50 and could recreate that sound myself....neighbours loved it.......
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  • JonathangusJonathangus Frets: 4436
    Rob1742 said:
    axisus said:
    I would have put money on it being called the Friday Night Rock Show???? Shows how fallible memory can be I guess.

    I think you are correct. I think I missed “night” in error 
    Nope.  The Friday Rock Show.  TV on the radio.  Thomas Vance, the music vendor.

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    As for "when am I ready?"  You'll never be ready.  It works in reverse, you become ready by doing it.  - pmbomb


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  • KittyfriskKittyfrisk Frets: 18381
    Mick Ronson was the third person to receive Classic Rock’s Tommy Vance Inspiration Award. RIP.
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  • thermionicthermionic Frets: 9499
    I got into it about 14 when me and a friend discovered guitars in the early 80s. It was quite an education hearing stuff I would never hear on daytime radio. I rigged up a speaker from an old radio and put it under my pillow to listen to it. Another friend who lived across the road had three older brothers and we spent a whole summer raiding their record collection. Alice Cooper one week, Rush the next…

    I still have a TDK of  a programme when Welsh band Crys did a session.
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  • Philly_QPhilly_Q Frets: 22516
    I listened to it every week, without fail.  I'd forgotten, but now that I'm thinking about it I used to write down the band name and song title of every track he played, and make little notes about what I thought.  I'd probably have had completely different taste in music were it not for the Friday Rock Show.

    (And yes, it was 100% the Friday Rock Show, not the Friday Night Rock Show! :) )

    The annual Top 10 was great, and I also particularly remember the show when he played The Wall in it's entirety, pre-release.  I went out and bought it the next day.
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16253
    kaypeejay said:
    Wasn’t the Friday Night Connection ridiculously convoluted? I don’t think I ever got any of them. It was I just a bit thick?
    I could never get them. Partly the convolution and partly that there was always some prog track in the middle of the three that I didn’t know. Possibly the root of my dislike of prog rock. 
    I did sometimes tape them, I tried to skip the speech and see if all the tracks would fit on a C90. Probably nearly did. 
    Not sure I was a regular listener as some people on here seemed to have been. 
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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