Top of the Pops 14 Mar 1985

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. Mike Smith: “Good evening. We have a great crowd in here tonight and some fabulous tunes. Welcome to Top of the Pops.” Gary Davies: “And making their debut on the show tonight with a great song called We Close Our Eyes, Go West.”

[16] Go West: We Close Our Eyes. I'm still on my YouTube adventure so this episode has more sources than HP. We start our journey with a file called Top of the Pops 14/3/85 p1.Excitingly, this starts with the (then) brand new BBC1 computer generated globe and the continuity announcer “Rodney's aspirations to become a rock star receive a fatal blow from brother Del in Only Fools and Horses which is why he's not appearing in Top of the Pops, introduced this evening by Mike Smith and Gary Davies”. Top of the Pops 14/3/85 p1 cuts out as Go West start singing. Disappointingly the only other copy of this performance was uploaded 10 years ago and the picture quality is blockier than a Lego set. It's recorded from an edition of TOTP2 so assorted POP FACTs start popping up on the screen. Thus we learn that “Birthday boy Peter Cox is 42 on Tuesday.” How does that work? Is always going to be 42 next Tuesday? And “The band didn't take their name from the Village People. And have nothing to do with cowboys” Who knew, everyone in Go West suffered from pistolpetaphobia.

Go West- We Close Our Eyes (except when its snowing)

Top of the Pops 3 May 1984

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. Steve Wright: "Good evening!! Welcome to another Top of the Pops with me and 'im!!" Mike Read: "That's right. We're going to kick off tonight with Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. This is a great track, Locomotion." 
[6] O.M.D. :Locomotion. Michael Hurll is contractually obliged to bring back Steve Wright for the second of his six appearances this year. I've got no idea what the criteria are for using Radio 1 DJs on Top of the Pops. A quick glimpse at the schedules for week beginning Monday 30th April 1984 suggests the only name missing from the regular weekday roster is Adrian John.
He presented the antisocial 6am to whatever-time-the-big-name-breakfast-show-host-can-be-bothered-to-get-into-the-studio show; in 1984 this was Mike Read (7am) but sometimes the start of the breakfast show drifted back to 8am. Adrian John appears to have held a death grip on this slot and hosted it more or less constantly from 1982 to 1993 before he packed it in to spend more time with his pillow.
Presumably the only thing stopping Adrian John from hosting Top of the Pops was the logistics of getting up stupidly early in the morning the next day. He does crop up on a few editions (normally the big party ones hosted by multiple DJs), watch out for the pale exhausted bloke propping his eyes open with matchsticks. Adrian John is not to be confused with Adrian Juste who hosted a weekly Sunday radio show, and is absent from Top of the Pops because he's terrible.Meanwhile, here's O.M.D. Andy McCluskey has worked out a Flick Colby-esque literal interpretation of the lyrics. How many can you spot? There's a sliding hand gesture for "walk down the sidewalk," a scurrying motion for "run down the boardwalk," wobbly hand wave for "sail across the seaways," and a brilliantly corny point-into-the-camera for "can't say no [POINTS] to you."