Starting off the week with an In Concert appearance from Pilot – recorded for BBC Radio 1 on June 21, 1975.
Fifty years ago, Pilot had a huge hit, Magic which to many earned them the unlikely label of “one hit wonders” – at least in the U.S.
Cut to 50 years later and Magic has gotten into everyones brains and under everyones skin, this time as “Oh, oh, oh, Ozempic” and splattered over every TV, radio and social media site almost endless times during any given day.
So maybe once a One Hit Wonder, today an anthem for a Diabetes medication. One only hopes the writers who were also members of the band, are living comfortably off the residuals.
Licensing your music for use in commercials or films has been a lucrative source of income for many artists over the years – it is often the razor-thin difference between homelessness and living a good life. And even though some poo-poo the idea as a sell-out and sacrifice of artistic integrity – try paying your rent on integrity – the exchange rate is zero-minus. Especially in todays fractured atmosphere in the business side of music.
But Pilot, it should be remembered, were a lot more than just one hit – they were a solid, extremely talented and tightly executed band, as is evidenced here by this concert. Pilot were very engaged in Funk, a-la The Average White Band (another Scottish group, just like Pilot), and were making inroads to a wider audience when, as 1976 quickly showed, Punk reared its head and pretty much turned the Music World upside down and inside-out. They were still very popular and had a decided following, but radio was being swayed. And by the time New Wave appeared, everything pre-1976 fell mostly by the wayside or became relegated to Oldies stations.
To give you some idea of who Pilot really were, in addition to closing the concert out with Magic, they displayed a band with much-much more to offer, if we just kept listening.
So with that in mind, here from June 21, 1975 is a set from Pilot, recorded at the BBC’s Paris Theatre in London and issued worldwide by The BBC Transcription Service.
