this is what is up on rage



14/01/2012: Saturday, 14 January 2012


The journey back in time continues with week 3 of ‘rage Goes Retro’!

rage fans will have the chance to reminisce with full episodes of ‘Countdown’ featuring Molly Meldrum, ‘Rock Arena’ and lots of old school clips from the past few decades.

We'll take you on a musical journey spanning back to the early days of ‘Countdown’ featuring a largely requested performance by The Dugites in 1980 and pop princess Sheena Easton also takes the stage and audience by storm in an episode from 1981. We will bring back memories with an episode of ‘Rock Arena – Rock n Roll Ladies’, hosted by Andrew Peters in August 1983, featuring performances by The Divinyls, Sharon O’Neill, Marianne Faithfull, Grace Jones and Martha Davis & The Motels.

Other retro clips to please all the retro fans out there include The Sunnyboys, Flash and The Pan, The B-52s, Supertramp, Bryan Ferry, Tactics & Sandii & The Sunsetz.

Friday 13th January- rage plays hits and new releases from 12:05am.
more about this guest/special





will this mean any 80's countdown. week 3 was there even a week 1 gosh i couldnt even count week 2.

WOW * HEAVEN!!!!!


They are playing the Sheena Countdown episode and Rock n Roll Ladies!!! :-)

What do rage mean by the HIGHLY requested Dugites performance?... In Your Car???

BUT, I am still VERY concerned. Are we only getting 2 Countdown's? :-( That is not a lot if so...

From the blurb it's looks to me like rage are just playing 2 Countdown episodes, 1 Rock Arena and the rest video clips which will MEGA p i s s me off if this is the case... Slashing wrists time!

rage Moderator just replied to me:

Hi CJ, there are 3 Countdowns on this weekend and 1 Rock Arena, as well as a special "behind the scenes" look at Countdown. There are lots of other goodies filling up the rest of the night. All will be revealed on Friday!

what they call goodies and what we call goodies could be a totally different thing.only 3 countdowns wasn't retro rage once just mostly countdown, this has yet to be the worst retro rage ever.

Excellent news.. Three Countdowns + Rock Arena = awesome. If there's some Flashez it = mega awesome!

The "behind the scenes" special sounds interesting as well.

I suspect the 'behind the scenes' on Countdown is the 1975 Weekend Magazine segment which I've requested a few times. That should be a good one to watch and hasn't been aired on Rage before.

The Dugites one I suspect is the 3/8/80 ep and the Sheena Easton ep should be the 10/5/81 show. Not sure what the 3rd Countdown is - maybe a 1982/83?

Rock Arena sounds great too - in fact this Saturday is sounding very fine - hope to see 1 episode of Flashez though - I wouldn't mind that.

An actual episode would be good but would also like a handful of the many hundreds of segments still unaired.

Surely it has to be the August '80 episoded with the Dugites. That was the top requested 1980 episode on our poll here and Guru posted the results on the rage message board. I have been looking forward to the Sheena Easton episode for years and this too was one of our biggest requests from 1981.

NOW, WHY CAN'T THEY F@#K OFF THE VIDEOS AND JUST STICK TO MUSIC PROGRAMS. THEY PLAY MUSIC VIDEOS ALL YEAR!

I am SURE there will be one repeated Countdown this weekend. rage can't help themselves from being lazy when it comes to Countdown :-(

Considering it looks like they will be avoiding repeating Countdown's, or maybe just showing one, and they have listened to the request for the Sharon O'Neill Rock Arena and the 2 Countdown's we as a whole most wanted to see from 1980 and 1981 then I think this is starting to look like a brilliant retro season.

My one fear, besides seeing common clips taking up retro space, was repeating material shown on Retro before. I was worried if it was to be 70's themed we would get 3 previously aired 70's Countdowns.

If they were to repeat one but listen to requests for others then I am happy with that. Not ideal if they are showing repeated episodes but they appear to be trying hard to cater for all and I really appreciate that effort.

I enjoyed the Hitscenes last week even though by 4am I could have done with a Countdown thrown in for variety. It would be great if they can throw a few more 70's Hitscenes in, some GTK and Flashez segments to give the 70's fans something as I do support material from all eras - although I still need convincing about the 90's being retro.

Same here, we need at least one from '87. Hopefully the one hosted by David Reyne.

I saw another one of Rock Arena episodes about female rock singers in Rage on TV in the early morning and during watching the clips by more female rock singers, I wonder if I'm going to dream about each clip and appear in whether could it be reading science fiction books with Chrissy Amphlett after the same books landed on the floor in the video clip of Science Fiction, having a relax in a spa/pool with Sharon O'Neill in the video clip of Asian Paradise or being in bed with Marianne Faithfull at a bedromm in the video clip of Sweetheart, waht's do you think? I'm still just a dreamer.

Enjoyed the Countdowns this week - a very diverse set of episodes. The 84/85 ones were great. Lyn Buckfield was a good host for the 84 one - although I doubt the theme of horse racing and gambling would be allowed on a similar show these days!

The 86 one with Russell Mulcahey was great - poor Russell got swamped with that fog machine a lot! Interesting to note during Humdrum Molly showing a Countdown videotape called 'Australian Made/Owned (?)- wonder what was on it - I assume they were Countdown performances.

The 1987 was pretty good too. I have to say the CDPTV format really sucked the life out of the show and was quickly discarded as by the May episodes Countdown had returned back to normal - and was all the better for it.

I did wonder why they were promoting the 87 Rock Awards but heard it was originally going to air on 17 May - 2 months earlier than it eventually aired. I guess they moved the date when they realised the show was ending, not sure.

Loved the 1989 Countdown Revolution episode. Anyone know what the nightclub was it was shot at? I note Kylie's performance was shot elsewhere as the crowd were smaller - most likely at Ripponlea studios.

Even watching that episode I could see the format wasn't really going to work. Having it 5 days a week was a big ask and the fashion/movie/general 'roving reporter' skits broke up the flow of the show too much. It should have been all just music and put in the original 6pm Sunday night slot and should have been called something else.

Would love to see more C. Rev. episodes - maybe some 1990 ones next week?

Generally it was a great night and wish Rage would do more like that. Hope next week isn't too shocking with Recovery, etc - or it may be an al 70's night considering Retro will be continuing into the first Saturday of February now - we shall wait and see...

Ah ok, was just wondering. Would have been great had it been a compilation of Countdown performances. I've been a little surprised by the 1986 episodes really - have found myself enjoying them more than I thought even if not many had an audience in them. I prefer those over the 87 CDPTV-era ones that's for sure!

They are, yes. The February/March 1987 ones are pretty unwatchable to be honest. But I think from late April Countdown reverted back to its old format and worked very well I thought - the May/July 87 ones that have been shown were pretty enjoyable - ironic given that would have been around the time they would have decided to end the show.

The crowd for the Countdown Revolution episode looked huge - no wonder the hosts were virtually yelling their intros!

If the powers that be, hadn't requested bands/artists lip sync their performances on the show, it may have lasted longer into the 90s I reckon.

Even though Video's were very important, live studio performances are much better.

I think so as well. I think that was sort of the trouble with the 1987 episode - while it had some live performances most of it was just clips which killed any sort of life to the show. Plus even the live performances didn't have the audience there either which wasn't that good.

In terms of atmosphere and mix of live performances and videos I'd probably go for the 81/82 era Countdown and 83 when they had live audiences in them such as the Laura Brannigan episode.

The early 80's Countdowns definitely had more 'atmosphere' or 'vibe' to them. My main interest in the '87 episodes is that was the first year I was really into music in a big way... so I like seeing (some of) the music videos & what was happening then. But yes the CDPTV format is a little dull.

Looking back, it does seem strange that they felt they needed THREE hosts for Countdown Revolution! And yes the weeknight format was probably overkill/impossible to maintain the vibe. It also looks like they were trying a bit too hard to make the show 'cool'.

That's nice of you, thanks!

Thought it may have some interesting things on it - wonder if there were any other Countdown related videos released back then?

The Bop Girl Countdown performance is also on there with the exercise set, LOL...