The Who, Floyd, Led Zep and the great college circuit that launched 1,000 bands

The Who, Floyd, Led Zep and the great college circuit that launched 1,000 bands

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold May 13, 2026 Duration: 49:55

Cheap tickets, warm beer, draughty halls and refectories, a whole new cobbled-together rock circuit was born in the ‘60s for an audience who watched and listened intently. Which allowed the music to take a different route. Paul Sexton spoke to Mark Knopfler, Nick Mason, Justin Hayward, Phil Manzanera and many others to piece together ‘Rock Goes To College: the Campus Music Scene That Shaped A Generation’ and talks to us here about the fans and amateurs who ran it and the lost world of motorway caffs and Ford Transits, stopping off at …

 

… Hendrix, Fairport, Free, Queen, Dire Straits: tales of the campus gig foot-soldiers

 

… no security, no lightshow, no seat, no stage: how the idea of live entertainment changed in 50 years  

 

… Pink Floyd not being allowed front-of house in Top Rank theatres without a tie

 

… the Stranglers and the Damned refusing to play college shows “unless townies were allowed in”

 

… the “chart clause” - £50 extra if a band’s in the Top 3!

 

… the Stones playing an Oxford ball

 

… bands market-researching songs before recording them

 

… why Leeds could afford the Who and Leonard Cohen

 

… what Harvey Goldsmith, Paul Conroy and Chris Wright learnt from booking bands

 

… why Wings chose the college circuit

 

… and the arrival of DJs and disco that put a nail in the college gig coffin, “a golden age with nothing like it before or after”.

 

Order ‘Rock Goes To College’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rock-Goes-College-campus-generation/dp/0008722412/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.EWpbXfJjfIq6DOGDGU8HMQMTbZ6fxtMSFJLLqnswcYo.7mGYWOOBglb6F5p42gs88d1lJ0uLxzWS4w3W0vPrwN0&qid=1775764128&sr=1-1


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There’s a particular kind of conversation about music that happens between friends who’ve spent a lifetime immersed in it-not as distant critics, but as participants in the culture. That’s the atmosphere you’ll find in Word In Your Ear, a podcast from Mark Ellen, David Hepworth, and Alex Gold. With a collective eighty years of writing and broadcasting for titles like Smash Hits and Mojo, and shows from "The Old Grey Whistle Test" to VH-1, they don’t just recount history; they unpack the stories behind it with the ease of a shared laugh. This podcast grew naturally from their work on the late, great magazine The Word, where they began recording over thirteen years ago, building a dedicated following who found something genuinely special in the mix. Each episode weaves together music, commentary, history, and interviews, moving seamlessly from deep-dive analysis of a seminal album to a frank chat with a surprising guest, all delivered with the warmth and wit of a late-night chat. It feels less like a formal show and more like you’ve been invited to pull up a chair in a room where the anecdotes are plentiful and the expertise is worn lightly. The result is a consistently engaging listen that treats music not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing part of our lives.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Word In Your Ear
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