Headbang - 19 Jul 24 - tracks & votes

A few changes last night at Dave's. Rob G and Colin weren't able to take part and Malcolm and Phil had to leave early whilst Gerry couldn't start until a little later. Andy, Rob D, Phil, Malcolm and Gerry were all remote dial-ins, with Dave, Jeb, Steve, Aidan and me all attending in-person. Colin's Curries were absent but Dave had already offered to do a barbecue for all those physically present. Jeb and I decided to get some exercise so I met him off the bus and we walked from Banchory to Dave's, arriving there a bit earlier than we thought possible and well before Aidan and Steve who drove there (with our beer supplies). Dave was well prepared and Jeb and I snacked on pigs in blankets with Jayne supplying the G & T's:

Despite the apparent worldwide corporate IT meltdown, the only problems we had were understanding how Teams works - it was so much easier with Zoom. We had a record number of themes to get through - nine in all, but mostly pretty short. We started with a gentle MEET and GREET - just 2 tracks to check out that everything was working for everyone:

That was followed by another short new theme - TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS:

The first chance for voting came with the 'GENARIANS theme:

Ray Davies the clear winner here. Other 'Genarians were:

NOW and THEN appeared for the 4th time. The "Now" was when the act was inducted in to the Rock and Roll of Fame and "Then" was back in their heyday:

It was pretty even voting between "Now" and "Then" for the first 4 tracks but a distinct preference for the 1971 performance from Carole King and for the Hall of Fame induction in 2017 for ELO. Best overall by far was Santana's Black Magic Woman. Andy came up with a suggestion for a theme - OLD, NEW, BORROWED and BLUE:

The "New" track was favoured but Cat Power's performance was generally felt to be poor. Not many OBITUARIES since the last Headbang just 8 weeks ago:

It was a shoe-in for Joe Egan. Other Obits were:

Another new theme I came up with was labelled PASSED MASTERS - short extracts from 7 blues legends who would all now have been over 100 years old had they lived:

This theme seemed to be popular and may now be repeated. Voting was close although, personally, I was a little surprised that Son House wasn't favoured and nobody seemed to like Skip James' almost falsetto voice. Up until this point, I hadn't made any contribution to the voting but my casting vote was required here and I gave it to Mississippi John Hurt over Howlin' Wolf. Seven nominations had been received for the JUKEBOX, including one from former Headbanger Gary whose nomination was favoured:

The 9th and final theme was the same as one used by the Headbangers on our River Dee Radio show back in 2017 - SAME TITLE, DIFFERENT SONG:

Peggy Lee, Spencer Davis, Led Zep and BB King were voted the favoured versions of Fever, I'm a man, Black Dog & Hold on respectively and I'm the man the best track. We finished the music before 11 pm for the first time. Malcolm and Phil had already signed off, but not before I managed to grab a screen shot:

Gerry, as ever, was acting shy again and was invisible. Those attending in person had their own photo op later on:

We had time to tidy up a bit and help Dave move his furniture back before our 11:30 pm taxi arrived