Bay City Rollers’ fervour seems to be at fever pitch in the run up to Christmas. The hugely successful boyband of the 70s are back in the groove once more, with a series of sell-out gigs in Scotland already confirmed. Can they go one step further and return to their halcyon days by repeating their success in America once again?
Unlikely comeback for Rollers
It may have become one of the more unlikely comebacks of the year, but the growing momentum and anticipation for the tartan army’s limited reunion gigs has clearly tapped into a nostalgic period in many British Music fans’ lives.
So much so that they clearly intended to “Give a Little Love” back to the boys by selling out their first Show at Glasgow’s Barrowland in just three minutes. A second gig unsurprisingly took slightly longer before all the tickets were exhausted but fifteen minutes was hardly hanging around.
Long queues on opening night
For those that remember the band from their heyday some 40 years’ previously, the memories are clearly still palpable. One eager fan in the queue for the opening night in Glasgow remarked that it was “definitely a big deal.”
That it certainly was as the queues around the block confirmed, all that despite a blustery Sunday night in Scotland’s largest city. Some people had been queueing for as long as four hours before the shutters opened up.
Edinburgh origins
Formed in Edinburgh in the early 1970s, their avid followers have not forgotten their youth and gave their own renditions of the group’s smash hits as they waited to enter the arena. For onlookers it may have resembled an impromptu hen party, as groups of enthusiastic women sported the red tartan commonly associated with the Rollers and waved their scarves.
With recent boy band One Direction heading in the opposite direction (at least while their sabbatical lasts), the Rollers’ couldn’t have burst back on to the scene at a better time. Albeit a good deal older now than when they burst on to the music scene, it seems that they still have the vitality to succeed.
Extended Christmas season
The original plan involved a one-off concert in Glasgow but that was extended to four nights due to popular demand.
The group will then play a further two gigs in Edinburgh at Usher Hall, before their whirlwind Christmas season takes in Manchester’s O2 Apollo on December 29th and finishes (for now) in London on December 30th at the Eventim Apollo.
Perhaps America and Japan next?
Their ambition doesn’t stop there, with the trio of Stuart Wood, Les McKeown and Alan Longmuir said to be setting their lofty sights on Madison Square Garden in New York next. Talks are believed to be underway to seal a date at the iconic American venue some time in 2016.
With their management also considering the possibility of taking in Los Angeles and perhaps even Japan as well, it seems that the sky could well be the limit for the boys in the New Year.