TFI Friday, returning tonight for a one-off nostalgia special, was hands down the 90s’ best music show. Jools Holland was too worthy, Top of the Pops too cheesy, CD:UK too teeny-bop, but on TFI live music, with a real, pogoing audience, provided the beating heart of Chris Evans’ perfect pre/post-pub telly. The show spanned a vintage era for rock and indie (even if it was a little too focused on white, male artists) and crested the wave of Britpop, attracting all the major names (Pulp, Blur, Suede) as well as a smattering of elder statesmen (Bowie, McCartney, Page and Plant). Its simple format – live band in front of baying audience – is weirdly absent from primetime TV today. So ahead of it’s comeback, here are 10 of the best.
1 Manic Street Preachers – A Design for Life (1996)
Evans was an early champion of the Manics’ big comeback single on his Radio 1 show, and his enthusiasm spilled over into TFI. This is one of the Welsh band’s first TV performances without guitarist Richey Edwards, who’d gone missing a year earlier, and captures the blend of defiance and awkwardness that defined this period for them. It’s a triumphant, passionate performance of what was to become the band’s defining anthem. A generation immediately scrawled “LIBRARIES GAVE US POWER” on its pencil case, and Manic Street Preachers briefly became the biggest band in the country.
2 Black Grape – Pretty Vacant (1997)
The performance that put the brakes on TFI as a “live-live” experience. Thanks to Shaun Ryder and Kermit’s potty mouths, the show had to be broadcast on a short delay ever after. It’s a fairly straight reading of the Sex Pistols’ punk classic and packs an energetic if rather messy punch, but the sheer gall of yelling “You’re pretty fucking vacant” at 6pm on Channel 4 made this a proper rock’n’roll thrill for 14-year-olds eating chip suppers off their laps. The look on Chris Evans’ face as the camera pans to him at the end is priceless.
3 Slipknot – Wait and Bleed (1999)
Slipknot’s take on blistering nu-metal was hardly the most brutal or original at the time, but that doesn’t mean middle England was prepared for actually seeing them at primetime. The masked band’s debut UK TV appearance was a full-throttle assault in your living room, and must surely be the heaviest pre-watershed performance in history, with the band making no compromises on their sound. The genius move here was to put cameras right in the middle of the mosh, surrounded by real fans going crazy, capturing up close the no-holds-barred rush of a metal crowd. The performance caused more complaints than any other act on TFI, but it’s easy to imagine that, for some kids, this would have been a life-changing piece of telly.
4 Napalm Death – Low Point, the Kill, Death (1999)
Responding to criticisms that he’d never featured “thrash metal” (and apparently ignoring the fact that Napalm Death aren’t really thrash), Evans invited the grindcore legends to perform an unprecedented three songs – which admittedly lasted a total of 59 seconds. While the band were clearly booked for novelty rather than any commitment to the genre, getting actual, undiluted Napalm Death on teatime telly was still a victory for metal.
5 Reef – It’s Your Letters (1996)
Not exactly a highlight, but probably the most memorable piece of music in the show’s run. Evans reappropriated the Britrock also-rans’ biggest hit, the ubiquitous Place Your Hands, as a jingle for the letters section. Perhaps unwisely, the band agreed to blast out a quick chorus with the words changed to: “It’s your letters!” It become something of a millstone around their neck, with fans constantly singing the TFI version during shows, and singer Gary Stringer being heckled with it in the street on a regular basis. Rumour has it that the band begged Evans to stop using the clip. Fans of the song are directed to this brilliant Twitter account, which tracks weekly sales of the Reef classic, for no apparent reason.
6 Page and Plant – Rock and Roll (1998)
TFI hosted numerous legends over the years, from Tom Jones jamming with the Stereophonics to McCartney jamming with himself, and Bowie delivering a faithful rendering of Starman. The best of the bunch is this 1998 Led Zeppelin sort-of-reunion. Page and Plant had reformed for a new album, and had been reinterpreting many of their classics live, but this is an exhilaratingly straight reading of one of their most straightforwardly rock’n’roll songs.
7 Louise Wener – Life’s a Gas (1996)
Once in a while, the show was happy to mess with the formula and bring the performances into the “bar” area for a more intimate setting. Highlights included Neil Tennant proving he could sing unplugged, the Manics’ James Dean Bradfield doing a wonderful take on Last Christmas, and this breathy reading of T Rex’s Life’s a Gas by Sleeper’s Louise Wener.
8 Annie Christian – Kiss the Day Goodbye (1998)
One of the more admirable TFI traits was taking a chance on new acts. Here, Scottish indie band Annie Christian get their big TV break and frankly knock it out of the park. Despite which, they were, alas, never heard from again.
9 Garbage – Only Happy When It Rains (1997)
A barnstorming performance of the US-Scottish band’s breakthrough hit, a slice of upbeat, sarcastic miserablism in which Shirley Manson’s effortlessly cool, kohl-eyed persona got its first primetime exposure. The next day, Claire’s Accessories ran out of dark eye shadow.
10 Faith No More – Ashes to Ashes (1997)
TFI hosted its fair share of US rock giants, from Metallica to Smashing Pumpkins, but this intense, bruising performance of Mike Patton and co’s Ashes to Ashes takes some beating. Considering they were hardly ever on telly in the UK, and it was years before the internet gave us their back catalogue whenever we felt like it, this was a rare chance to see one of the greats of alternative rock at the peak of their powers.
Any more to add? Let us know in the comments below
