RTE TV celebrates it’s 50th birthday this year and is using the occasion to feature a selection of archive content online and in the regular TV schedule. The highlight so far round these parts was the David Heffernan documentary on Phil Lynott. Dave is familiar to readers of this site as he was the face of rock music on RTE childrens show ‘Anything Goes‘. I don’t remember an awful lot about the show as the only reason I watched was to catch a glimpse of the young Irish bands that Dave would introduce performing in studio. I believe RTE is sitting on a veritable goldmine not in monetary terms but in having an archive of performances that capture a lost generation of irish rock music. I would love to see RTE get Dave Heffernan do a documentary on those musical performances. Maybe Dave could share a few memories of the show and what they got up to, maybe talk to some of the band members and reminisce about the show. Lets be clear I’m not talking about a show that digs out early U2 appearances, I’m interested in the unsung bands who burned bright and left indelible impressions on young minds up and down the country and have since fallen off the radar. I personally would gladly watch a show made up entirely of the musical performances on the show, it could be as simple as an on screen informational text a la ‘Reeling In The Years’ but for gods sake dont dare give us another show like ‘Reverb’ with infuriatingly short musical clips interspersed with inane commentary from folk who havent a clue what they are talking about. This is the RTE equivalent of ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’ we’re talking about. There were other shows that are also of interest for their musical content. I cant remember the chronology but ‘TV Ga Ga’, ‘Visual Eyes‘, ‘Megamix‘ and ‘Borderline’ spring to mind. The Late Late Show also featured occasional performance from up and coming irish rock acts. How about it RTE, a retro music series for us fortysomethings?
