Bad Company have become the latest act to be added to The Midnight Special‘s ever-growing online archive.
The footage shows the band performing the classic Can’t Get Enough in concert, and was broadcast on April 27, 1979, just three days before Bad Company’s first North American show of the year, a Desolation Angels tour date at The Summit, a 17,000-capacity arena in Houston, TX.
The footage, previously released by Bad Company as an official video in 2015, was shot at the band’s date at Wembley Arena in London in March 1979, a show released as part of the Live 1977 & 1979 album in 2016. It showcases a performance of Can’t Get Enough that proceeds at a slower pace than the version that appeared on their self-titled debut album five years previously, and finds frontman Paul Rodgers taking a rare guitar solo.
Other acts appearing on the show on April 27 were studio guests Greg Allman – who also hosted – Edwin Bishop, Booker T & The MGs, Jerry Lee Lewis and Jennifer Warnes.
Can’t Get Enough, which had become Bad Company’s traditional set closer by 1979, was the first tune the band recorded together in 1974 at Headley Grange, the former workhouse in Headley, Hampshire, where Led Zeppelin famously recorded Led Zeppelin IV.
“We were scattered all over this country house,” drummer Simon Kirke told Songfacts in 2017. “I was in the basement, Boz [Burrell] the bass player was in the boiler room, Mick Ralphs and Paul Rodgers were up in the main living room where the guitar amps were. So, in order to get their attention, because we couldn’t see each other, I did the count: ‘1, 2… 1, 2, 3…’ and then I did this ‘guh-brah’ to get everyone’s attention. And that’s how we kicked it off. It was born out of necessity.”
Can’t Get Enough of Your Love – Bad Company | The Midnight Special – YouTube 