Calling out across the land — Rollermania is back!
Well, at least the Bay City Rollers are.
The mid-’70s British band, which inspired tartan-clad “Rollermania” in the UK (along with two Nick Lowe songs), announced Tuesday in Glasgow, Scotland, that they’ll be returning to the stage.
“You think we’re doing it for money, but we’re doing it for the glory of Scotland and the glory of the tartan,” singer Les McKeown said, according to Billboard. The group is scheduled to play a December 20 show at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom, with more expected.
At one point in 1975-76, the Rollers were the biggest thing going in Great Britain. In May 1975, the band was besieged at a BBC-sponsored event in which fans, pursuing their idols to an island in the middle of some concert grounds, actually tried to swim across to them.
“If I live to be 200 years old, I am never going to experience anything like this again in my life,” famed British DJ John Peel recalled.
In the UK, the band — usually decked out in plaid — had 10 Top Ten hits, including two No. 1s. They weren’t quite as successful in the U.S. but still managed three Top Ten hits, including the No. 1 song “Saturday Night.”
Though McKeown played down the financial side, the band does have an interest in making a few bucks. In 2007, six members filed a lawsuit against Arista Records, claiming that the label failed to pay millions of dollars in royalties. As of 2013, the case was still in the works.
Three members of the original group are getting together, with a fourth, Eric Faulkner, interested, according to McKeown. Drummer Derek Longmuir, now a cardiology nurse, isn’t interested in taking part.
It may have been 40 years since the band’s heyday, but guitarist Stuart “Woody” Wood was still proud of the Rollers’ teen-idol days.
“We were bigger than One Direction. They haven’t had a mania,” he said at a news conference. “It’s been a long process, and I’m just glad that we’re all sitting here, and we’ll just have to see where it goes, but we’re mega-excited with the gig coming up at the Barrowlands.
“Be there,” he added, “and bring your tartan.”