1979: What has DLT got midway down his top? One of Dusty Springfield's habitual comebacks saw her in largely piano-backed chanteuse mode, Johnny Pearson behind her, admiring youth semi-circling around the stage. She's right to raise that mike cable above her head in celebration.
1984: A less reverential reaction to The Special AKA then the show was clearly expecting from that cold opening, but it's just the start of a conscious-ska party all the way. Listen to the chant that starts around 2:45 on the beat and continues regardless of vocal. The balloons are still flying en masse by the time Blancmange come on, the keyboard player having to fend one off almost straight away. The rest of the show is retained here and here with the Bluebells (not that one), a misspelt Jonathan King's US round-up from California introducing us to a misspelt Weird Al Yankovic, Nik Kershaw bringing his own stylish, distracting dancers and Andy McCluskey presumably wondering why he didn't have the same idea.
1990: Here's a new approach - one hit wonder leather rocker Alannah Myles takes it while sitting on her own front of stage plinth. Her demeanour doesn't really suggest she's putting her all into it, unfortunately.
2002: Talking Heads never made it to the studio but David Byrne eventually did with X-Press 2. Like a part extended tribute to early Chris Lowe, the collective's act involves looking at computer monitors or, in a triumph of literalism, laying in a bunk bed stage right. Such folderol would never wash with The Vines, occasionally decipherable representatives of the New Rock Revolution.
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