Live Heavy Metal Britannia at the BBC

This is a review of the live archive footage show Heavy Metal Britannia at the BBC.  The BBC have had all the big UK bands play on some program or the other both before and after they were famous.  This show was about half an hour long.

First on was Deep Purple playing Black Night on the UK chart single show, Top of the Pops, from October 1970.  Ian Gillian was behind the drum kit singing and Ritchie Blackmore was in the front playing guitar with his signature Bard hat.

Next on was Judas Priest playing their first single Rocka Rolla in April 1975.  They were playing on the Old Grey Whistle Test, a very serious music program from the seventies.  Rob Halford had long hair and they were dressed in a glam pop style with platforms.  You would believe they would become leather clad metal gods in the future.  The song Rocka Rolla did have glimmers of what was to come, you could hear what might influenced bands like Def Leppard.

The welsh band Budgie were next up on the Old Grey Whistle Test from June 1975 playing Who Do You Want for Love.  I had never heard them really before.  They are not exactly metal but had a good rock sound with a good groove.  Metallica covered two of their songs, Breadfan and Crash Course in Brain Surgery.  Iron Maiden covered I Can't See My Feelings.

Uriah Heep played Wise Man from April 1977 on Top Of The Pops.  It was a slow song with a story for lyrics (felt like a country and western song).  Uriah Heep are renowed as the first western rock band to play Russia.

Motorhead, Lemmy, Fast Eddie and Phil, 1978.

Motorhead were on with Louie Louie from September 1978.  There was Lemmy, Fast Eddie and Phil.  A good performance.  They were at number 75 in the charts on 16 September 1978 and then went up to number 68.

A modern Black Sabbath were on next with Paranoid.  No year given.  It looked to be an actuall concert so it may have been Top of the Pops.  The original lineup were there, Ozzy, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Geezer Butler.  They did film live bands for TOTPs, like Maiden and inserted them into the show in the 90's.  Footage was fuzzy at thimes, becuase of the lighing.

Iron Maiden came on then with their first single Running Free in February 1980 on Top of the Pops.  They insisted they play live on the show as artists usually mimed to their song normally.  They were one of the first band to play live on the show.  The band was Pail Di Anno, Denis Stratton, Clive Bur, Dave Murray and Steve Harris.  The studio turned the sound down on them and they didn't play the show again for years.

Next up was Saxon with Wheels of Steel in April 1980.  Looked to be in a studio with no audience so not sure what the show was.  Of note, Biff Byford had dark hair back then.  The drums, Pete Gills were out in front, bassist Steve Dawson to the left, Graham Oliver to the right, Paul Quin guitarist and Biff to the back.

Second last on the show were Gillan with Trouble from October 1980.  May have been Top of The Pops as the album hit the charts.  This was Ian Gillan solo band.  The song was old style rock n roll but with heavy guitars.  Was a pretty good performance.

To close the show were Diamond Head playing To Heaven From Hell in October 1982 with Sean Harris (vocals) and Brian Tatler (Guitar).  Not sure what the show was either, looked to be a studo again with no people but with a large stage and loads of Marshall amps.  A very good metal performance from NWOBHM era.  Again Metallica covered Diamond Head's Am I Evil and Blitzkrieg (Lars was a huge fan of theirs).

I enjoyed the half hour show, with all the great music it felt longer (in a good way).  There are a lot of the clips available on Youtube if you do a search for the band and the date so you could see a lot of it yourself.

Hope you enjoyed reading this,
Cheers,
Steve.

Heavy Metal Britannia

A few weeks ago BBC Four had a heavy metal weekend with the Program Heavy Metal Britannia.  I watched and really enjoyed it.  Here is what the program is about.

It was a very interesting program especially of you like metal or rock guitar.  It went into the history of British Metal.

The first section was on the beginnings of metal.  First sounds of metal from blues rock artists.  Songs like The Kinks, You Really Got Me (which Van Halen and others have since covered).  The guitarist of the Kinks, Dave Davies (his real name) said he put a screwdriver through the paper cone of his guitar map to get the distorted sound.  It went on to Jimi Hendrix and Vanilla Fudge, Caravan and heavy blues rock artists like the Yardbirds.

Next was a section on the first metal bands.  They chatted to Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and a welsh band called Budgie.  They came from a dank dark industrial British landscape of coalmines and British Steel. They had a choice of working in a factory, mine or doing music.  There is some good footage of this life gone by.

Not mentioned was that Black Sabbath's guitarist Toni Iommi had an accident in a steel mill press where he lost the tip of his finger.  This was the day before he was leaving the job to become a professional musician. He was inspired to play again by listening to jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who also had a left hand injury but continued playing guitar. 

The older band members chatted about how they got their sound and pioneering the whole metal movement.  It was interesting to hear Jon Lord of Deep Purple say it took three albums and several years before they settled on a sound and identity.  They all lived in industrial areas and the industrial sounds influenced and leeched into their music.   Note: None of them claim to be Heavy Metal, they all say they are Heavy Rock, Hard Rock or Heavy Blues.  Notably Led Zeppelin was missing from the program.

They toured in vans going to Working Men's clubs.  KK Downing of Judas Priest describes how one time they got paid one time, not to play they were so loud and heavy.  No one knew what this type of music was then.

The Punk era came along and this saw the rise of Motorhead (who toured with The Damned).  The Metal bands survived but as Biff Byford of Saxon said, they liked and picked up on the energy of Punk.  The New wave of British Heavy Metal came at the end of seventies.  These band members grew up in a different era, one of strikes, 3 day weeks and winters of discontent.  The days of coal mining and steel works were disappearing.

The kids also had their own club.  The Heavy Metal Soundhouse at the Bandwagon run by Neal Kay.  Neal was on the program chatting, he mentioned Rob Loonhouse inventor of the Air Guitar.  Rob came in one weekend with a replica of a guitar.  Someone asked Rob why it had no frets.  Rob replied that it didn't need them as it had no strings.

This section, The Beast looked at Saxon who came first.  They were first ones who had chart hits.  Biff says when they played Top of the Pops (the British BBC chart show) other artists had champagne, a green room and red carpets.  They pulled up to the back door in a taxi.

The also had Iron Maiden, probably the most successful band of NWOBHM.  Charting their career from the start up to their number 1 album, The Number of the Beast.  They chatted to Bruce who described the first time he saw them with Paul Di Anno singing and how he thought he could do so much with that band.

On the other side they chatted to the Diamond Head guitarist Brian Tatler.  They influenced Metallica.  Lars Ulrich followed them on tour and slept on their couch.  Diamond Head wondered why they weren't getting signed.  When they did they missed the boat.

Of course in the program there were loads of musical clips of each band to accompany the program and chart the history of the rise of British Metal.  If you get a chance to watch the program please do.  Certainly Heavy Metal Britannia was an educational program in a good way.

Thanks for reading,
Steve.

Heavy Metal Weekend declared in Britain

The British have declared this weekend a Heavy Metal weekend.  It is not often the stiff British Broadcasting Corporation supports Heavy Metal, but when they do, they get into it 100% and they do it in style.  Years ago they had a Heavy Metal Christmas (called Heavy Metal Heaven) with Slayer and Metallica now it is the turn of the UK bands that influenced them.

BBC Four (a British digital TV station) are having loads of British Heavy Metal programs this week.  It kicked off last night (Thurs) with Iron Maiden's latest movie Flight 666.  This was the documentary that they shot last year as they flew around the world in a Jet flown by lead singer Bruce Dickinson.  It continues tonight with 60 minutes of concert footage from the Somewhere Back in Time Tour with three of the best metal guitarists and the best bassist live.

The flagship program has got be Heavy Metal Britannia. This traces the origins of British Heavy Metal from the Industrial cities and Working Men's clubs with Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.  Through the 70's with Judas Priest up to the 80's and New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) with the likes of Iron Maiden.  You will find that the British side of metal is a lot darker and less glossy than the American stories.  They British rockers are very proud of their Metal bands and support them strongly (but quietly) by going to all the concerts they can.

There is also another program, Heavy Metal Britannia at the BBC.  This is BBC live archive footage of bands like, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest.  The BBC have had all the big bands play for them at some stage and there will be some rare and great footage shown.

Black Sabbath in the 1970's

It finishes off with two episodes of Rock Family Trees.  Friday night is Black Sabbath and Sunday night is Deep Purple.  These two bands influenced everyone from Miden to Metallica and Korn.  Especially Tony Iommi's guitar playing which inspired legions to learn to play rock guitar.  The two bands have had members float between them like David Coverdale, DIO, Ian Gillian, Whitesnake, Rainbow, Ozzy and so on.  Sure to be informative and good rock music to watch.

The bulk of the programs are on Friday night the 5th March and are repeated over the weekend.  All are shown again on Sunday the 7th.

Click the link below to find out more from the BBC Four website.
BBC Four Heavy Metal Britannia

If you miss that see if you can see them on the BBC iPlayer, it keeps all programs shown for a month or so.  You can find it also on the BBC website above.

Hope you get checking it and enjoy it.
Cheers,
Steve.