Madness brought the curtain down on BBC Television
Centre with a concert outside the iconic building on Friday.
The ska band
played a mixture of old songs and new tracks in front of the venue, which is
closing its doors on Easter Sunday after 53 years.
The show was
screened live on BBC Four and was followed by a special programme where a host
of stars share TV Centre memories.
Madness said
they were "honoured" to be chosen to play the farewell gig.
A statement
from the band, who shot to fame in 1979 with their cover of ska legend Prince
Buster's One Step Beyond, read: "We've played at some exciting places in
London lately but the closing of BBC TV Centre... well... that is close to our
hearts.
"As a band we grew up there, those walls have
plenty of Madness tales to tell, a sad day, the end of an era. Oh, but what a
celebration."
The band
performed new material from their recent album Oui, Oui, Si, Si, Ja, Ja, Da,
Da, alongside hits including Baggy Trousers and Our House.
Before they
played their set in front of a selected audience - with many others gathering
outside the building's gates - Madness appeared on The One Show recalling their
favourite TV Centre moments.
The 1960s
building in west London, once the home of Top of the Pops and Blue Peter, was
sold for £200m. It closes on 31 March and will be redeveloped into a hotel,
flats, a cinema and office space.
The main
television studios will be retained and refurbished for leasing out to
production companies, including the BBC, from 2014.
The transition
to the corporation's new London home, New Broadcasting House, in central
London, began in 2012.
The Madness
concert was followed on BBC Four by Goodbye Television Centre, a two-hour show
hosted by former BBC Chairman Michael Grade.
The programme
featured interviews with some of the biggest names to perform at the venue,
including Sir David Attenborough, Penelope Keith, Ronnie Corbett, Sir Michael
Parkinson, Sir Terry Wogan and Sir David Jason.
At the scene:
"I never thought I'd miss you half as much as I
do."
If an emotional - but fun - send-off was required for
TV Centre's final night, after 53 years of live broadcasts, who better to provide
the soundtrack than Madness, who have officially become the house band of
Britain's big occasions.
The Nutty Boys have provided many moments of mischief
in the studios and corridors of this famous building - Suggs boasted on stage
they had been banned from every BBC show they had appeared on. They mixed their
biggest hits with many comic references to the entertainment ghosts that will
remain here.
The remaining staff who crowded the windows and
balconies to look down on the rain-soaked gig in the horseshoe car park were
referred to as zombies and given a friendly wave.
On Wood Lane itself the crowd who could not get in
danced and sang along and the car drivers who normally whizz by crawled to a
halt to take in the scene.
They'll not see its like again.
Source: BBC
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