Banchory Headbangers: 7th Virtual Headbang

Well, it wouldn't be a Headbang - virtual or not - without some technical issues, and so it transpired last night. The first casualty was Jeb who was a late cancellation having been enticed away by Celtic Connections' opening night. Colin had some difficulty connecting initially but got going just in time for our 8pm prompt start. It wasn't much later that we received a distress message from Rob who had experienced a power cut in Maryburgh, which basically meant he missed the first 3 themes but at least he was able to join us again for the last three. Steve, Gerry and Andy all experienced intermittent internet fall-outs later in the evening but they were thankfully short-lived. Malcolm, Dave, Phil, Aidan and I were, however, able to enjoy the evening without any snags. Our first action was to take the team photo:

The first theme as usual was 'GENARIANS. There had been an unusually high number of musicians having had big birthdays over the last couple of months. Starting off with the SEPTUAGENARIANS we featured 10 of them - some fairly briefly - and then voted for our favourites in an online poll. The tracks in order of play, together with the votes, were:

Turning now to the OCTOGENARIANS, 7 featured:

As you can see, specially prepared medleys were the order of the day. The two Joans were clear winners of each section but the more elderly Baez won the vote 6-3 in the play-off. In accordance with tradition, OBITUARIES were next. There had only been 4 who had passed since the last gathering and it was really no contest:

Gerry Marsden's medley featured all 6 of his singles that made the UK Top 10. One "bonus" track was played - in the week of the 5th anniversary of David Bowie's passing (and what would have been his 74th birthday), I felt it was appropriate to feature his live OGWT performance of the opening track on the classic The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Five Years. One recent Obituary not featured was:

Anyone remember him? Our 3rd theme was TRAIN SONGS. Seven railroad themed tunes were played and, this time, first and second choices were voted on, which gave the following appropriately weighted results:

A surprise winner here, but Joe Brown's drummer gave a great vocal on the Junior Parker song from 1953, first popularised by Elvis - and the band, including Joe, were good too. On to theme number 4 then, titled HEADBANGERS' JUKEBOX. The idea here was to get something new that hadn't been seen or heard at previous Headbangs - either an artiste or a song (ideally both) - so each Headbanger had nominated one track. After playing all 11 selections (including Jeb's), we voted for our 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices, producing the undernoted results:

(There were only 10 options on the Zoom poll, so my track wasn't voted on). On to the 5th theme now - ROCK AT THE MOVIES (2). This was the second time this theme had featured at a Headbang, but on this occasion the question was asked which scene the song featured in, with the answer given afterwards in extracts from each of the films. The tracks - and answers - were:

The 6th and final theme was NAME DROPPING. Five tunes were played, each of them containing the names of well known people - celebrities etc - named in the lyrics. The tracks and the names mentioned were:

Jagger, Bowie and Picasso were fairly easily picked up but some missed the Johnny Rotten and Stones' references and I don't think anyone picked up Twiggy, Carl Jung or Dylan? So, out of 9 names, I only gave the evening participants 50% - a fairly generous marking everyone thought. For the record the relevant lyrics of Drive-in Saturday and Mr. Jones are: