All of “The Tube” is on the YouTube
As “an old man who hit his prime in the 80’s” doesn’t quite capture the essence of me and my time, and is mostly incorrect, it probably isn’t wise to start this paragraph like that. But here we are.
I was alive in the 1980’s, 5-15 years of age officer, and I was no where near cool enough to know that I needed to watch “The Tube” in order to increase my cool points. The last series, maybe, was in my periphery, but my focus was silver bands and piano practise. Un-cool-to-the-extreme.
I now realise that had I watched these early seasons at the age of 8-9, I would probably have quite a serious addiction problem now in an effort to forget it all. I jest, of course. The logo does look like “teebe” though. Doesn’t it?
A very generous and resourceful member of the youtube community (Lol-Z), perhaps an old C4 employee(?), has uploaded the entire catalogue of The Tube broadcasts. Every single show from all 5 series, with adverts blacked out (and a smattering of performances due to damn copyright reasons, can be viewed. Some of the history it captured was an amazing live Cameo performance, Frankie Goes To Hollywood before Trevor Horn got is hands on them, as it were.. and the never-fail Weather Girls never-failing to impress the audience.
A few taps on the fast-forward button (L) might be occasionally needed (for skipping the advert break, and the few removed performances) to keep those “vintage 80’s vibes” happenin’ in your lounge.
This links to the users playlist page
The first episode of the first season of the “The Tube” featuring Sting, Heaven 17, Pete Townsend (from “The Who”) and Paul Weller (from “The Jam”)
Maybe one day I won’t need to record all the old re-broadcasted Top Of The Pops (until the mid-90’s when it all got a bit questionable) because the BBC will have every single episode online. Until then, this archive is your music-bubble back to the 80’s.