25-01-2015, 15:33
No, the original show ended when presenter Bob Harris left at the end of the seventies. From the start of the eighties, they shortened the name to Whistle Test, brought in a series of bland presenters and had typical eighties bands. I stopped watching by the early eighties as I didn't like punk rock and synth pop, but they continued to the late eighties. In the meantime, a new channel, Channel 4, had started a peak-time show, The Tube, consisting of live bands, although they were commercial like U2. Jools Holland of The Tube went on to present his own OGWT type show called Later With . . ., but you have to suffer a lot of rubbish to see one or two good bands if you are lucky.
Our TV and radio channels in the UK have never been committed to rock radio or live rock music on TV, unlike, say, the US. Rock music meant underground music, whereas in the US it was filling the charts.
Live footage, from the OGWT, of bands like Alice Cooper, Judus Priest, Budgie, Baker Gurvitz and many others, has become the holy grail to people like me, who were a bit too young to stay up late and watch the programme when it first started. I caught up with it for a few years, especially the new year shows. I remember going to parties, but finding a TV with my friends to watch OGWT's (fantastic) round up of the year. It was the first time I heard early Rush or The Outlaws and others.
As a footnote, in the early nineties, we had a late night show with the appalling titles of, first, Raw Power and, later, Noisy Muthas. This was around the time of bands like Sepultura with shorts and goatee beards, but they did have Extreme, Stiltskin, Hootie, Manny Charlton Band, Neal Schon, 21 Guns and others. After the programme finished for the evening, it was followed by old concert footage of bands like TYA and Hawkwind. The last time I looked, there wasn't much footage on the internet.
BBC4, a digital freeview channel, make some excellent documentaries and compilations, shown on Friday nights, but we now get practically no live rock music on TV.
So the short answer is 'no', OGWT is not still running and it finished around 25 years ago.
Our TV and radio channels in the UK have never been committed to rock radio or live rock music on TV, unlike, say, the US. Rock music meant underground music, whereas in the US it was filling the charts.
Live footage, from the OGWT, of bands like Alice Cooper, Judus Priest, Budgie, Baker Gurvitz and many others, has become the holy grail to people like me, who were a bit too young to stay up late and watch the programme when it first started. I caught up with it for a few years, especially the new year shows. I remember going to parties, but finding a TV with my friends to watch OGWT's (fantastic) round up of the year. It was the first time I heard early Rush or The Outlaws and others.
As a footnote, in the early nineties, we had a late night show with the appalling titles of, first, Raw Power and, later, Noisy Muthas. This was around the time of bands like Sepultura with shorts and goatee beards, but they did have Extreme, Stiltskin, Hootie, Manny Charlton Band, Neal Schon, 21 Guns and others. After the programme finished for the evening, it was followed by old concert footage of bands like TYA and Hawkwind. The last time I looked, there wasn't much footage on the internet.
BBC4, a digital freeview channel, make some excellent documentaries and compilations, shown on Friday nights, but we now get practically no live rock music on TV.
So the short answer is 'no', OGWT is not still running and it finished around 25 years ago.
âThe fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.â William Shakespeare, As You Like It