I thought this Retro season was excellent - even allowing for some repeats of poorly-chosen lesser-interesting Countdown shows and specials and some 90's slop in the first few weeks. Especially that excruciatingly boring Interview show from the end of 1979.

Cannot complain at all with the variety of material shown though - probably the best ever!!.

Highlights for me (not necessariy in order)

One Unrepeated Hitscene
The Dig We Must from 1966
The Six O''Clock Rock - a magnificent treasure of Australian TV heritage - like a museum artifact to be admired!!
All Unrepeated Countdowns - great viewing as always~!!

I now look mournfully ahead on the calendar to January 2012 - it looks so far away yet the years do fly by when you are old like me.

And only 4 Saturdays now for the next few years - our luxury of 5 Saturdays has slipped by again due to the vagarities of our Roman calendars.

Of course Saturday 31/12 is New years eve this year - it may qualify for some sort of retro special especially if the best of Guest Programmers stuff is shown on Christmas Eve the 24/12. Getting in early already. Gee it is hard being a fan of older music - we are largely ignored by all except Rage in January.

The only thing I'm not happy about is the lack of Flashez clips barring the Sherbet ones. There are hundreds of these little pieces of heaven in the ABC archives and we get a lousy two Ah well the rest was great and bring on next year and hopefully more Flashez clips

Definately would have preferred more episodes from 82/83.

The years 85-87 weren't the best years of Countdown in my opinion, and I can do with less of them next year.

Shame about Flashez not being shown like was originally promised.

I think Retro this year was very good but would like to see more Hitscenes next year and Flashez (if they exist) and GTK performances.

I never realised there were 100's of bits of Flashez surviving as Gary mentions. I thought there were only a few segments left. If there are then we definitely need to see that. I love 70's TV footage as that is when I first saw TV and I was in awe - although I was probably very easily awed.

Instead of the 3 repeated Countdowns they could have played 8 episodes of Hitscene, or 6 episodes and some GTK and Flashez thrown in. While I am not a fan of constant repeats personally I do think all eras need to be catered for and the 70's got short changed there as the 2 Countdowns were from Nov/Dec 1979.

Fantastic to see 6 o'clock Rock and Dig We Must as there is virtually nothing left from the 60's, no idea what they will play next year for that. Maybe the other surviving episode of 6 o'clock Rock. I don't know if they have anything left of Teen Scene with Johnny Chester from the mid 60's.

To me 90's performances from Recovery and 10:30 Slot don't belong in Retro but there are many good performances on there - I had been requesting Hecate's By Myself for years after I heard them on JJJ's Unearthed segment and missed the one time they performed it on Recovery on Nov 2 1996. I think for these 90's performances if a Classic Recovery segment is put in on Saturday mornings and a clip played each week that would be great. They already have a Request segment, Vault segment, Touring segment and No.1 segment so instead of playing new releases twice that night show a bit of Recovery or 10:30 Slot there, as I quite like the live performances.

If they do repeat more Countdowns from the 70's, as seems very likely, it would be better if they show the 75-78 shows as 1979 was very similar to 1980 music wise and wasn't a classic 70's year as Skyhooks, Sherbet, JPY, Hush etc had been replaced by disco. I thought repeating the Nov 25 '79 Countdown rather than play an unrepeated one from just 9-12 weeks later in Feb/March 1980 wasn't a great choice as it would have been better to show one from 1976 instead if they do feel the need to play repeats.

Unlike John, I love my Rock Arena's, especially those hosted by Suzanne. They tended to play all the clips that Countdown wouldn't. I hope for at least one episode each year getting on. By 1987-88 they were playing huge amounts of independent/alternative music which was great but as Rage was starting out and doing the same I guess that killed the show.

As far as I know Rage have 3 complete Flashez episodes left to show. I was surprised not to see at least one of them this year - maybe next time.

Surely it's also time for some Countdown Revolution, The Factory, Beatbox, etc to get an airing as well?

As for Retro 2011....Weeks 4 and 5 were great - what I wanted with a wide variety of shows, music which would satisfy everyone. I'd like to think the stinging criticisms Rage received after their appalling efforts during Weeks 1 - 3 spurned them on into finally putting on a good show.

Apart from the unaired 84/85 eps, Weeks 1 - 3 were shocking - a COMPLETE waste of time and, considering there were 5 Saturdays this year - that waste was just tragic.

So for the first 3 weeks, Retro gets a D-, for the last 2 it gets a definate A.

For next time I'd like Rage ditch Recovery/10.30 Slot - as they are NOT Retro! Neither are Marilyn Manson or Skunkhour - indeed I think Mr. Manson would be appalled to think he's 'Retro material' already!

For clips shown in between Countdowns, etc maybe they could play items from the segment tapes. Perhaps a segment tape list can be posted on here around Sept/Oct so people can then suggest clips for Retro 2012?

I'd love to see less 1980 Countdowns. I think that's been given a fair go this year and I wouldn't mind seeing definately a 1982 ep and even a 1986/87 one too. 1987 shows especially haven't been seen for a few years now and I think showing at least 1 wouldn't hurt.

So while Rage did drop the ball during weeks 1 - 3, they mostly made up for it in the last 2 weeks and I'll keep on plugging away at posting my lists - although I'll change my tactics for next time to ensure they get an airing.

Overall a pretty good season in the end...I'm glad the seering heat held off in Adelaide until today. Usually during Retro it get so hot it affects the TV transmission - thankfully not this time. Sadly in Adelaide it's 42 today - yuck! I loathe Summer with passion - give me Winter nonstop all year round!!

Another 11 months to go until next time......my favourite part of retro is when the clock strikes onto January 1, but the worst is when it strikes January 31...oh well, does anyone have a fast forward button so I can zip through the next 11 months???

@ guru

According to the site 1970scountdown there are roughly 500 Flashez segments in the ABC archives of which roughly 25 have been aired AFAIK. There are only a small number of the full shows however. I've also discovered a couple on the ABC youtube site that haven't been aired on Rage. They are 'Skateboard Ramp' & 'Punk Magazine' both of which I don't think I've seen. Needless to say they will be downloaded.

Agree about more Hit Scenes and GTK clips although the ABC youtube site also has tons of GTKs so that's not a huge deal.

Also more obscure stuff like 'Dig We Must' would be very welcome.

Jason:

Oh Patrick,

You and I agree on everything!

I agree totally! ... Weeks 1 to 3 were so disjointed and such a waste of time!... Week 3 had the 1984 and Sharon o'Neill clip which were great BUT the first 3 Saturday's SERIOUSLY lacked excitment!

Retro 4 and 5 were just GOLDEN * Especially retro 5 last night :-)

Sorry Guru but NOTHING about Recovery including the performances were any good, actually TOTALLY SICKENING!

And I don't agree that 70s fans were short changed at all!


I just hope next year that rage play MORE Rock Arena's like last night's from 1984/1985 :-)


More unrepeated Countdown's and at least 4 Countdown's every weekend like we have got on retro 4 and 5... And more segments of Beat Box!


For January 2011, I would rate weeks 1 to 3 a D and Week 4 and 5 a big A !

By the way, did anyone notice that FABULOUS rage goes retro promo with the Calypso music? I ADORED IT!

I am already SO depressed that January is over :-(
11 months of H E L L ahead living in the 00's, ARGH!

CRAP :-(

The last 2 January's have had 5 Saturday's in them but next year it's 4 Saturday's! :-(

NO FAIR!

I was really dissapointed with this year's, I'm afraid.

The highlight for me was the Chantoozies 'Love The One You're With' clip. Make of that what you will!

I guess in the end, they are still so many different taste's in music, even in the retro side that rage can't please everyone.

In light of the few repeated countdowns, I thought this years retro generally was worth a 8/10. The two big gripes I had were the two Rock Arena's that were absolute sh*t. A complete Kinks and Hunters+Collectors concert was just too much. I do like these groups, but not entire concerts.

I may not be popular for saying this, but I thoroghly enjoyed the 1979 end of the decade special, it was a show that had really placed me into the moment. This was so much to the point that the day I watched it, I ended up making a December 1979 mixed tape. Yes, I'm still into audio cassettes, they sound so much better then MP3's. I had just turned eleven in 1979, it was a period of so much excitement and anticipation. Many right this period off as just disco, but for me it was a total transision between the 70s and 80s, and I thought the "End of the Decade" show had captured that feeling very well. Though it's got the blue blob on it, it's nice now I have a nice clean digital copy of this show.

As noted before, I thought it was great they showed a number of 1980 shows this year, I loved the year, but as some of you guys said, we would of liked to see more stuff from 1982,1983, and 1984. I'm definitely pleased that they showed a good number of 1985 shows, another fantastic year.

I'm not a fan of the sixties stuff, but I don't begrudge rage for showing it, as I realise there are those who grew up in the 1960s, just like I did in the early 1980s.

As a final note, I wish the ABC would make some cut backs in the sports area of their broadcasts, so it can afford the Beatles stuff, and not f*ck up every show that may have some Beatles stuff in it.

We had 17 Countdowns shown this January, compared to 13 last January. However, we did get 3 repeats, but we were still 1 episode up from last year, so even though we may think Countdown is on the decline as the years roll on, it seems the opposite. We just have to make sure that rage don't show any unrepeated duds.

I thought the Saturday morning retro hour was an improvement on recent years.