Date: 19th November, 1979
Venue: College of Commerce and Technology, West Bromwich
Setlist:
In December 2011 a guy named Daniel King got in touch with our web site and said the tapes we were looking for in our ‘Wanted’ advert were in his father’s loft. It turns out his dad was the head of the West Bromwich College, TV Dept and remembered Diamond Head coming in to record some songs so that the students could practice on us. And I guess in return we would have a free video to help promote the band. The only snag was…we forgot to pick up a copy and this black & white recording has not been seen by anyone since it was recorded on the 16th November 1979. It is a miracle the tape has survived these past 32 years and is the earliest video of Diamond Head in existence. I was very excited to get my hands on this ultra rare video and view it for the first time.
It was recorded using Monochrome Shibaden cameras, as they did not have colours cameras at the college back then. The tape has a brief introduction by BBC Radio Midlands DJ Chris Phipps, who championed Diamond Head tirelessly back in the day and was convinced we were going to make it big.
First up on the tape is a full version of ‘Am I Evil?’ Featuring a different guitar solo to the one on the debut album as that had not yet recorded and it is a work in progress. Next comes a full version of ‘Helpless’ and last but not least ‘Shoot Out The Lights’, which Sean introduces as “from our forthcoming single” With the amount of hair we were shaking around, had it been now I doubt Health & Safety would let us perform as it would have been a fire hazard. Colin is on good form while Sean wiggles his hips for the cameras and makes up a good chunk of the lyrics as he goes along (sometimes sounding like gobbledegook) answers’ on a postcard please. Duncan looks like he has not discovered razor blades yet and although he has two cymbals, he only hits one of them, maybe the other one was a spare in case anything happened to his main one! The college TV producer told me “The volume at which you played was too loud for the ear sets of the camera crew. We in the control room lost contact throughout the whole session! The lads and girls did their best, instinct got them through”.
Brian Tatler – February 2012