Van der Graaf "Refugees" promo vid from 1970!!

 

 

Recently discovered, very historic footage of VdGG from '70. Explanation from my VdGG Facebook page:

 

A promo video of VdGG miming to "Refugees" from 1970 has surfaced, courtesy of Herman Permentier. This is one of those stories that make you wonder what else is out there. After the recent discovery of Peter Hammill's appearance on the famous British kid's show "Playaway" from 1979, all the Hammill fan forums were buzzing. Tucked away somewhere amidst all the comments was a statement from Herman that a promo for "Refugees" also existed. I thought, "Huh??" I followed up with him privately to ask what he was on about. It turned out that Herman had, in his attic, an old videotape copy of this clip (acquired privately from an old BBC producer) that had been gathering dust for 25 - 30 years. Just sitting there, un-played for decades... this absolutely historic piece of VdGG lore. Herman played it for the first time in years, sent me a description, and I immediately hit up Peter, Hugh, Guy, and Dave and asked if any of them remembered it based on the description. The answer was Nope. Phil (my VdGG book co-author) and I did ascertain that it was cool with PH for Herman to post the vid so that everyone could see it (a concern of Herman's) and let Herman know. Once Herman got the green light, he bought all the proper cables, etc, and set about digitizing it. The blue flashes, etc, aren't on his original tape but happened during the transfer. That'll be fixed later probably, but for the time being this is a very watchable slice of wonderment.

Amidst all the round-robin emails with the band and all the jokes about Peter's shirt, and the various clothes, lip-synching, etc, I found out (as did Herman in his own emails to the group) that even after seeing the vid, NO ONE in the band remembers this. They had no idea that a promo for "Refugees" existed and they don't remember making it. John Anthony, the band's producer and basically another member of the band both socially and professionally at the time, sent the clip to me privately once Herman had posted it and humorously exclaimed "WTF?" I was going to ask him if he remembered or knew about this clip, but I think that was my answer! Perhaps Gail Colson, who was at Charisma (VdGG's record label) will remember something about this (maybe an idea of Strat's 'cos he loved the song so much?).

It's a British clip (Herman ascertained this) so it was probably shown on the BBC. On January 9th, 1971, the band was shown lip-synching on a BBC show called "Disco 2" but that would have been the four-piece lineup -- this clip includes bassist Nic Potter, so this is the five-piece months before Nic split. It's the single version of "Refugees" the group is miming to in this clip, which came out April '70, so I would go with this being filmed around April '70 then.

After the Playaway performance and then this (both instances where these old video tapes had been gathering dust for years in peoples' attics), everyone needs to go upstairs into their storage rooms and look for VdGG/PH gems...

As no known footage of the '68/'69 lineup with Keith Ellis exists, this may be the first filmed performance of VdGG (their appearance on German TV's 'Beat Club' came a few months after this). A big thanks to Herman for sharing, the VdGG fan community owes him a lot. This clip has been mostly unseen since 1970. Now it will be enjoyed by thousands.