Episode
The Who, Floyd, Led Zep and the great college circuit that launched 1,000 bands
- Podcast
- Word In Your Ear
- Published
- May 12, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2995
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Summary
Cheap tickets, warm beer, draughty halls and refectories, a whole new cobbled-together rock circuit was born in the ‘60s for an audience who watched and listened intently. Which allowed the music to take a different route. Paul Sexton spoke to Mark Knopfler, Nick Mason, Justin Hayward, Phil Manzanera and many others to piece together ‘Rock Goes To College: the Campus Music Scene That Shaped A Generation’ and talks to us here about the fans and amateurs who ran it and the lost world of motorway caffs and Ford Transits, stopping off at … … Hendrix, Fairport, Free, Queen, Dire Straits: tales of the campus gig foot-soldiers … no security, no lightshow, no seat, no stage: how the idea of live entertainment changed in 50 years … Pink Floyd not being allowed front-of house in Top Rank theatres without a tie … the Stranglers and the Damned refusing to play college shows “unless townies were allowed in” … the “chart clause” - £50 extra if a band’s in the Top 3! … the Stones playing an Oxford ball … bands market-researching songs before recording them … why Leeds could afford the Who and Leonard Cohen … what Harvey Goldsmith, Paul Conroy and Chris Wright learnt from booking bands … why Wings chose the college circuit … and the arrival of DJs and disco that put a nail in the college gig coffin, “a golden age with nothing like it before or after”. Order ‘Rock Goes To College’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rock-Goes-College-campus-generation/dp/0008722412/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.EWpbXfJjfIq6DOGDGU8HMQMTbZ6fxtMSFJLLqnswcYo.7mGYWOOBglb6F5p42gs88d1lJ0uLxzWS4w3W0vPrwN0&qid=1775764128&sr=1-1 Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conver…