ICONIC Tyne Tees music show The Tube is returning – for one night only and on stage not screen. Music historian Chris Phipps has put together a show The Tube – It Was 30 Years Ago to mark (and the title is a bit of a giveaway) the made-in-Newcastle programme’s 30th anniversary this month.

The man who was credited as the “Simon Cowell of the Tube” for the acts he booked for the show is promising a night of rare images, anecdotes and sounds at The Sage in Gateshead to bring back memories of The Tube.

Phipps went into the show as booker, became assistant producer and was involved during the entire run from 1982-87. Helping him recall The Tube will be Geoff Wonfor, film director on the show, editor Peter Bensimmon and Gavin Taylor, studio director for the whole series.

The Tube, which was shown on Channel 4 with Jools Holland and Paula Yates as presenters, changed the face of pop music on TV both through the acts it featured and the way they were presented.

“I did a 40 Years Of The Whistle Test at The Sage in January and a number of people said, ‘You were involved with The Tube why don’t you do something to mark its 30th birthday?’ Obviously it will be popular locally because so many people went to the show on Friday nights at Tyne Tees Television,” says Phipps.

“It’s really an evening of anecdotes as well as audio, film clips and photographs I took during the five years I was involved. It was a pleasure to put together. “I think 1982 was an interesting year because Live Theatre found its Quayside home and the Hacienda club opened in Manchester.

“It was different in Newcastle then. I remember looking out from the Tyne Tees building and they were making flour at the Baltic and there was a big wasteland where the Sage now stands. Really, I like to think that in some small way The Tube played a part in that regeneration of Tyneside.”

Tyne Tees Television’s City Road studios, where The Tube was filmed in Studio Five, has been demolished along with the Eygpt Cottage pub next door – known as Studio Six because many interviews were shot there.

The tube-like entrance that gave the show its name is also no more. “The original title of the show was Jamming.

Then someone noticed the entrance to the studio was like a tube. That’s where the name came from,” recalls Phipps.

The series has been digitalised and is held at Yorkshire Television in Leeds. The archives were raided for a Best Of The Tube series to mark the 25th anniversary five years ago.

  • The Tube – It Was 30 Years Ago: Northern Rock Foundation Hall at The Sage, Gateshead, tomorrow, 7.45pm. Box Office: 0191-4434661 and thesagegateshead.org