Friday Rock Show

The Friday Rock Show was a radio show in the United Kingdom that was broadcast on BBC Radio 1 from 10pm to midnight on Friday nights from 24 November 1978 to 2 April 1993. Throughout most of its run it was hosted by Tommy Vance. Ostensibly for the genre of rock in general, it was most closely associated with heavy metal. In the early 1980s it was the only nationally available outlet for this genre of music, and Vance's enthusiasm for showcasing new bands and his rapport with fans made the show essential listening for rockers. For most of its run, its intro and closing theme tune was the Dixie Dregs instrumental "Take it Off the Top", and the quiz in the show "the Friday Night Connection" used the Van der Graaf Generator track "Theme One", (a cover of the theme tune originally written for Radio 1 by George Martin in 1967); other jingles were written and performed by Samson (with Nicky Moore on vocals) and Vow Wow. The show replaced John Peel on Friday nights, but Peel's show had previously featured more mainstream styles of rock music than he personally favoured as "part of a review function"; after the Friday Rock Show began, Peel was able to concentrate on the post-punk styles he was most enthused by at this point.

The show generally included a studio session or live performance each week, arguably being the main reason fans tuned in. Many of these studio sessions were engineered, mixed and produced by Dave Dade, generously bearded BBC Senior Studio Manager, who worked closely with show producer Tony Wilson. Also featured were recordings from the BBC radio archives, both live and studio-sessions, from as far back as the late 1960s. This material included bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, Uriah Heep, The Nice, Rush and Genesis, among others. At the time the majority of this material was not available on general release and even today, in the current era of the deluxe edition CD album featuring bonus tracks, some remains unavailable to the general public, mainly because Tony Wilson took the tapes with him when he left the BBC in 1995.

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