15th March

1979: Is there a point at which Paul Weller started wearing shades indoors? For the latest The Jam appearance he's also wearing the sort of City broker-like suit the sorts he'd be deriding on Eton Rifles two singles later might fancy. Speaking of wearing stuff, Legs & Co accompany Chic with a largely forseeable cut-to costume change, plus wobbling, telegraphed by Peter Powell, who seems a little too excited by the prospect.

1984: Simon Bates was always keen to emphasise what studio they were in like it made a difference. Don't know what the bloke on the right's story was. Julia & Company are first on in a studio that seems all over the place, massive Toppotron to the right, people in yacht wear to the left. And a big note and bow to finish. Not as big a note, though, as Tina Turner, her first ever appearance on the show for her power ballad cover of Help!, not entirely sure what to do with the mike. Bates' portentousness at the start is semi-amusingly underminded by Smith's sole comment at the end.

1990: A very Madchester-in-spirit show, this one. In one corner Inspiral Carpets, complete with girls actually screaming at Tom Hingley, unless that's blind fear. In the other corner, Primal Scream breaking new boundaries of awkwardness. If you didn't know anything else about them at the time, and that's very likely, what would you make of Bobby Gillespie's input here? Pub quiz winner: Mark Gardener of Ride on approximate keyboards. And in entirely their own area far away, Candy Flip's cover of Strawberry Fields Forever, and you'll notice they did get their mates in. That girl's still screaming.

2002: We'll have to take this on trust that this European screening is the same one we got, but already everything we felt we needed to know about Shakira is laid out. There's some interpretative indigenous dancing that turns into flagrant booty shaking, a man on session panpipes and a nod at some sort of cartoon rock tradition. That breasts/mountains line (which has been edited out of this for some reason) wasn't lost in translation, by the way, the Spanish is exactly the same. Electric Soft Parade were much the same in the glamour stakes. I'm not sure that keyboard part at the end is entirely in keeping with the recording.