If you were a teenager, or any-ager, in the seventies, live footage of bands was hard to come by. There was no YouTube, no commercially available videos, no MTV. Obiously you could go see a band live, but that only applied to bigger cities that were on the stops of major tours. If you lived in Bumfuck, Oklahoma, you were out of luck. There were always the odd appearances on variety shows, but they generally tended to be the least threatening. Variety shows were for adults. You might get the Fifth Dimension or the Supremes. Whoop-de-doo.
In the mid-seventies, programmers noticed the void. Burt Sugarman came up with the idea for The Midnight Special, a show that aired on Friday, from midnight to 1:30 AM. It was a mixed bag, usually with two stages. After one act played a couple songs they'd introduce the act on the other stage. For instance, softies Seals and Crofts ("Summer Breeze") introducing T Rex. Back then, as teenagers not old enough to go to bars, the air time was just about perfect. Whereas bars stayed open until 2 AM, keg parties generally petered out earlier. It wasn't unusual to come home from a party with a couple buddies in tow and flip on The Midnight Special.
Here's a short documentary (nine minutes) on the series and a link to the Wikipedia page that lists the performers. Some were piss breaks (Bread, John Denver, etc) but some were great bands that you might not ever get to see. To wit, the New York Dolls appeared on the show in what may have been their only televised appearance in the U.S. (I certainly can't think of another).
One thing that I'd forgotten is that the bands appeared live, so the versions of the songs you heard could be slightly different than the record. That's where Mark Bolan comes in. I watched a clip of the best of The Midnight Special's 1973 season. Skipping around, a slalom course through soft rock (jim Croce, Loggins and Messina, Helen Reddy), there's Billy Preston, Steely Dan, War, the Edgar Winter Group (wherein he beats the crap out of his new toy, a synthesizer). So, Mark Bolan, after being introduced by Seals and Crofts, does an eight minute version of "Bang A Gong". It's so pathetic (and I like T. Rex), that it's comical. First thing you'll notice is the relentless tambourine bashing by the female back up singers, mostly out of time. It's like they're in their own little world and have nothing to do with the song that's being played. Get used to it because you won't be able to ignore the tambourines for several minutes. You'll also notice Bolan's get-up. Not entirely different from what he would normally wear, which is to say, something ridiculous. The song goes on for a while and then it's cliché time. Oh. man, this is something you have to see. I forget the exact order but there's the smoke machine, the lame solo, the humping the guitar routine and then it morphs in to a funky, white boy version of James Brown Lite. This is Bolan at his most full of himself. It's hilarious and it's awful.
T. Rex - Bang A Gong mp3 at Tumblr Control group.
Video:
Mark Bolan/TRex - Bang A Gong (live) at YouTube Eight minutes, The Midnight Special, 1973
The Midnight Special 1973 at YouTube One hour of performances from 1973, includes songlist.
The Making of The Midnight Special at YouTube Nine minute documentary
Visit:
The Midnight Special at Wikipedia (scroll down for list of performers)
