“Really good to see this performance, as it was unique! Shame the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) saw fit not to broadcast it live on TV to the world as part of the Platinum Jubilee Parade. (Instead, they chose to show an interview with Ed Sheeran, while you could just hear the band playing in the background).
“The band was supposed to play two songs, 'London Is The Place For Me' and 'Pan In A Minor', in honour of Lord Kitchener, who sang 'London Is The Place For Me', while still on the first boat, the HMT Empire Windrush (ironically a ship made in Germany), carrying people from the Caribbean en mass to migrate the UK, had docked in Tilbury Docks on the 22nd June 1948, but the producers of the parade cut the 10 minutes time allotted for the performance down to 5 minutes.
“The arranger, Andre White, had to merge the two songs into one! As you can see/hear, the performance is shown as starting during the introduction, as the BBC production team did not even know when the orchestra was playing and cut to them when they realised that the performance had started!
“There was no introduction shown on TV explaining how/why the band was formed or the reasons for the choice of songs; no mention of the arranger or Musical Director Leon Foster Thomas either! You can only see this performance on BBC iPlayer, if you live in the UK (you have to be a UK TV licence payer) so nobody 'outside' can view it unless you 'lift it' and place it in places such as YouTube with a greatly reduced visual quality.
“I guess you can tell I am not best pleased with the turn of events (I am not going to go into the level of disrespect shown by the BBC), but at least the players had the chance to perform some great music outside Buckingham Palace, representing Steelpan and share the stage with Ed Sheeran!!”
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- BBC allegedly throws serious “white-out” on one of UK steelbands’ finest moments - No Live Broadcast of Pan performance at Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
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Replies
I whole heartedly agree. See Pan Disrespect - BBC allegedly throws serious “white-out” on one of... for my thoughts