Headbang - 13 March, 2026 - Final Votes

Final voting is now closed. I received 9.3 votes for the ranking of the Themes from 10 to 1 and the results were:

Kennedy Center did well and so has earned a repeat appearance at the next Headbang, having received top marks from 4 of those in attendance. However, it wasn't quite universal as there were also 4 lowish votes for it too - the first of the usual anomalies.

Flutes proved to be a bit of a Marmite theme with 2 top votes and 2 bottom votes. Septuagenarians was again nearer the bottom of the pile but still received one top vote and also just one bottom vote.

Today's Birthdays had previously been dropped from the list of themes, having come bottom of the voting on 3 previous consecutive occasions but was brought back by special request this time. However, it's now off to the Headbangers' graveyard of former themes.

Votes were received from all 12 present for everyone's Top 3 tracks. A total of 20 tracks were nominated, emphasising the usual divergent tastes. The results were:

Wish You Were Here was the clear winner, receiving votes from 6 of those present.

Three winners of different themes on the WhatsApp polls on the night didn't receive any votes in anyone's Top 3:

• Roger Glover (Octs 1)
• Beatles (Final Gigs)
• Jeff Beck & Imogen Heap (Jukebox - equal best)

Performances from all 7 decades from the 1960's to the 2020's received at least one nomination, with the 1970's and the 2010's the most with 5 each.

The 2 themes that didn't receive any Top 3 votes were Today's Birthdays and Octogenarians (1), compared with Kennedy and Obituaries who each had 4 nominations in the Top 3 votes. Even the relatively poorly regarded Septuagenarians theme had 3 nominations here.

The Headbangs started in the late 1980's but I only started keeping attendance records from November, 2003 and themes only started in December, 2008. Over the course of those 73 Headbangs, we've had 18 different attendees, with Harry the latest "newbie".

There have been 170 different themes since 2008, of which 39 have been played more than once.

The date of the next Headbang is Friday 24th July - get it in your diaries now.