By Elliott West
I’d had this idea of taking Ready, Steady, Go, which was a similar music show in the ’60s, and blowing it up into representing everything that had gone after it – let’s have bands playing on the Tyne, let’s have Sting busking in the Bigg Market. And all these things happened”.
Malcolm Gerrie
Introduction
Let’s cast our minds back to 1982. A year where you could buy a pint of milk for 20 pence, a loaf of bread for 37 pence and a pint of beer for 73 pence. At a time when the milk float rattled through the streets in the early morning, the coalman still delivered with Green Shield stamps and Luncheon Vouchers being all the rage. Unlike the countless choices of television channels, we are spoilt with today, there were only three then and the youth of 1982 were crying out for a seismic change. A change that reflected the vibrant music scene that existed at the time. A moment came when the groundbreaking music programme, The Tube hit our television screens.
The Tube was part of a package of exciting programming that graced our screens with the launch of much much-needed fourth channel, Channel 4. A channel that brought us Countdown, Brookside and a swathe of avant-garde programming. Broadcast from Newcastle and filmed in Tyne Tees Television Studios, the first show hit the air on Friday, November 5, 1982, and presented by two youthful presenters, Jools Holland and Paula Yates. A perfect duo for this role that aimed to challenge the success of Top of the Pops and bring back the zing that music programmes once held with The Six-Five Special. Viewers didn’t want cheesy television, they wanted raw music with a touch of anarchy. An eclectic mix of music and fashion.
Harnessing the Beat
The Tube took its name from the circular covered walkway leading to the studio with a theme tune provided by an instrumental called Star Cycle performed by legendary guitarist Jeff Beck. An audience made up of the Tyneside youth who had their fingers on the pulse of music. A show that was determined to prove the doubters wrong who believed that the programme wouldn’t work. When the studio doors opened and the cameras started to roll, we were treated to a brilliant package of music icons at City Road TV Studios such as Elton John, Tina Turner, U2, Culture Club, Bon Jovi, Paul McCartney, Dire Straits and INXS. A programme that put Newcastle firmly on the cultural map with filming that reached the global climbs of Japan, Jamaica and the United States.
Opening New Doors
The Tube helped launch the music careers of many with Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Terence Trent D’Arby, The Proclaimers and Madonna gracing their books. It would also help comedians who appeared in it, such as French and Saunders, Vic Reeves, Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson and a local comedian Wavis O’Shave.
I would just pop in. It was all very spontaneous.” Sometimes labelled as Britain’s ‘first alternative comic’, his best-known character was a Geordie tough nut known as ‘The Hard’ who famously “felt nowt” whenever he was banged over the head. “I also turned down the chance to meet an up-and-coming singer from New York – who turned out to be Madonna”.
Wavis O’Shave
The Pub Next Door
If you walked into the now-demolished Egypt Cottage next door to the studios, you were bound to rub shoulders with the stars of the time. Ozzy Osborne loved the place and sent many a drinker running out in fright as he insisted on being interviewed in an upright coffin there when he was interviewed on the show. A coffin that leant against the bar.
The Right Mix
The producers hit the jackpot when they persuaded Jools and Paula to present The Tube. The musical-minded Jools from the band, The Squeeze and the sexy and sassy Paula. They were the epitome of what the programme aimed to create. anarchic, irreverent, chaotic and informed and very credible. They paved the way for so much of what we take for granted in television style today. They made Newcastle the capital of cool.
The Swansong
After 131 episodes, five years and five series, The Tube began to suffer with falling ratings and internal politics. Jools made a faux pas by swearing live on live television. Acceptable today, this was a no-go in this era and so the final curtain came down after Duran Duran performed. A show that was transmitted on April 24, 1987. However, the main reason for taking it off air was that the producers didn’t want it to fizzle out like The Old Grey Whistle did. So they thought they would end on a high.
In subsequent years, there was a one-off show in 1999 on Sky One presented by Chris Moyles and there were rumours that the show would come back in 2012. However, nothing materialised and proved the quote from Paula Yates in April 1987.
Paula Yates
