It Bites featured on the Channel 4 documentary programme Equinox, this edition dedicated to the electric guitar and broadcast sometime in 1987, I think.
The amount of times I've heard the word "who?" and been shouted down whenever I've opined that Frank Dunnery is one of the best guitarists the UK has ever produced.
I remember a review if an early It Bites gig in Kerrang magazine. The writer said they were completely mind blowing, and had "achieved a stunning degree of musical literacy for their age" He also noted that would probably not do very well, and wouldn't become household names because they were simply too good for the masses and, like XTC the media and record buying public would find them hard to understand and categorize, leaving them as a 'musicians band' I think he was right. I must have seen them about 8 times over the years, including a few gigs with John Mitchel on vocals. They were always excellent.
@@WarrenCromartie2 I played in the support band for their UK tour in 1989 and watched them out front every night ..and they were always mind blowingly good. i think these guys are massively underrated and should have had had much more success than they did.
I wore our video recorder out watching this over and over back in the day. I could recite Dunnerys speech word for word. I literally ate and breathed It Bites and still love them today. One of the most underrated and talented bands ever. Love the cigarette smoke wafting across from the ashtray on Franks amp. Dah! 😁😘
"Work usually starts sometime in the afternoon..." .. always loved that vibe seeing IB at The Manor on this, its just great, OATW is absolute top class
I remember watching this many moons ago when when I was a lad loved it bought the album vinyl ofcause and many more I brilliant guitar playing too 🤘👏👏👏
Still one of my favourite guitarists & bands after all these years. First saw them in Liverpool University gig then later on the Liverpool Empire - every note immaculate even through such intricate creations. Total respect for them and I still play the first 3 albums to death 😍
I was at that Liverpool university gig too. Their playing was so precise, so perfect, it actually felt more like listening to a record than a live gig - which probably wasn't a great thing. Still love their music though.
I remember seeing this program on tv in around 1987 ish and I video taped it and I watched it over and over and it was on this program that I first found and heard Joe Satriani playing midnight and I instantly became a massive Joe fan and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him twice.
Totally with you on that! I love the two albums they made with John Mitchell on guitar/vocals, who is no slouch on guitar himself. But it still had massive amounts of the IB sound I feel in love with as a kid. I have been gutted twice now by their breakup!
Saw Francis play South Shields last night He recreated this sequence (the bit comparing the Fender to the Squier ) onstage word for word and note for note. For, as he said, the people who were coming to the shows and getting very upset that he wasn't playing stuff like he did "back in the 80's"." hahaha it was genius !
great band saw them many times before they made it around the west cumbrian clubs franks hero was his brother baz.r.i.p who was one of the best guitar players i have ever seen.he gets his style from him great video.
Frank Dunnery, wow,,,,sure, there is an army of techie shredders now but back then he was from another planet !! I can only guess Alan Holdswoth would be the source for his style ? It bites,,best band of eighties / early nineties, still play this album today, ,
i saw this when i was a nipper/kid/youngling...Frank blew my mind, i used to have the documentary on vhs but alas it was lost to time..thanks for uploading, great stuff:]
I love this song - it's a proper prog journey, great syncopation, great jazzy chords, I love the way the drums kick in unpredictably. "Crack the Champagne, seems like 1924 down here..." :-)
Since I first saw this (when it was first aired) I've got so used to the finished piece it's pretty surreal hearing this "karaoki" version. I was going "crack the champagne, what's the year, sounds like 1924 down here" in my mind at the last part of this clip! Thanks a million Lonegroover for posting this.
One of the classier epic tracks inspired by and with structural similarity to 'Supper's Ready',a couple of others being IQ's 'Harvest of Souls' and Marillion's 'Grendel'. I think this is my fave though, it is such a fresh approach and the influence is not immediately obvious.
Yeah, I remember him saying that when I watched it on TV. I think that it was Equinox on Channel 4. Lead guitarist to the end! Be modest but then rethink and boast - and I say that as a lead guitarist. A fantastic player
Love this...great band, very talented individuals. Complex and technically challenging songs made to look and sound straightforward. Frank Dunnery was and still is an outstanding guitarist. Totally disagree with Graham White, but hey we all have our opinions.
First band I ever saw live, when I was 15. Going to see It Bites FD tonight in London, hopefully will get to hear this and have it sound this lively, rather than the studio version which has always been a bit tame compared to this rough mix (IMO, of course!)
Watched this clip so many times but it just dawned on me that the guy doing the narration sounds like the bloke telling you where to hide in case of a nuclear holocaust...a la Frankie Goes to Oblivion! Also the producer is in his pants. Only in his pants apart from a skimpy top. If you pause at 7'31", he looks like a cross between Neil Morrissey and Richard Beckinsale.
BaddaBigBoom. This documentary came out around 1987 ish and I had it on video tape and I watched it constantly but sadly the tape disappeared in the depths of time and never to be seen again.
..wasn't Tubular Bells recorded here. It's ironic that Japanese guitars used to be a joke, and now they make some of the highest quality guitars in the World, just look at the state and poor quality issues with Gibson guitars. ;~)
Allan was born in my hometown of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. As you probably already know Allan sadly died recently. Francis Dunnery did a nice two hour tribute on his online radio show, and the podcast can be downloaded here...... podcasts.progzilla.com/francis/Francis_Dunnery_Radio_Show_-_041.mp3
@reoreason Dunnery told me and my guestsy that they really pissed off Branson when they were there by getting the key to his wine collection and doing some serious damage!! Strange place for Branson to set up at--Kidlington: has the little airfield but he's a Surry boy and you'd think some where near Gatwick would suit him better. DUnnery did a house concert in Oxford last year, Did you go? Although, i suppose, you are not in the area now. Keep it dark... any good??
Edit: Open the song in Audacity and change tempo by 10%. That's more like it (however now sadly the audio quality is a bit let down). I wonder why they went with the slow tempo in the end...
Michael Baker It’s in the video title haha! But yeah need to increase the tempo by 10% using Audacity as the actual recording is way too slow in my opinion.
Just done this and now the track sounds more like it does in the video above; you said your audio quality suffered - I'm not hearing it on mine, did you export as WAV or something else? Anyway; good bit of advice here, and it doesn't make the track unlistenable or anything, just a little different - thanks.
Nope. I do too. In fact him and Joan Collins' sister (can't remember her name, just remember to turn her off everytime she shows her face) sound spookily alike. This strand could be the groundwork for a massive debate and census on irritating affected accents!!!
Yeah Frank was without doubt a fantastic musician...but so were/are the rest of the band. Saw them in Glasgow last year with the new guy and it was better than I expected. Couldn't have been too bad as I'll be going again in March.
The sound engineer Mark Wallace did a shit job of recording this. I remember at the time, watching this on TV and thinking it sounded awesome and when I got the album and listened to it, it sounded like a pile of shit. You could hardly hear the guitar because it was masked by the keyboards.
The producer has responsibility for the mix on the final released version of the songs, not the sound engineer. The band themselves were responsible for much of the production work on the title track.
Still listening to it bites in 2019 in my opinion one of the best and most underrated bands that have ever been.....
2020 says hello
The amount of times I've heard the word "who?" and been shouted down whenever I've opined that Frank Dunnery is one of the best guitarists the UK has ever produced.
He has incredible capacity but he didnt really pursue it. In fact he actively rejects the title of 'guitarist'
Still in my top-ten favourite bands.
I remember a review if an early It Bites gig in Kerrang magazine. The writer said they were completely mind blowing, and had "achieved a stunning degree of musical literacy for their age" He also noted that would probably not do very well, and wouldn't become household names because they were simply too good for the masses and, like XTC the media and record buying public would find them hard to understand and categorize, leaving them as a 'musicians band' I think he was right. I must have seen them about 8 times over the years, including a few gigs with John Mitchel on vocals. They were always excellent.
@@WarrenCromartie2 I played in the support band for their UK tour in 1989 and watched them out front every night ..and they were always mind blowingly good. i think these guys are massively underrated and should have had had much more success than they did.
@@vincentav8 Were you in Blinder? Or maybe Dare? I saw both supporting IB around that time, and both were bloody good! :-)
I wore our video recorder out watching this over and over back in the day. I could recite Dunnerys speech word for word. I literally ate and breathed It Bites and still love them today. One of the most underrated and talented bands ever. Love the cigarette smoke wafting across from the ashtray on Franks amp.
Dah! 😁😘
It is 2024 and I still hear IT BITES.
A insanely good band
Oh yes.
"Work usually starts sometime in the afternoon..." .. always loved that vibe seeing IB at The Manor on this, its just great, OATW is absolute top class
Fantastic band . I've always loved their sound! Francis Dunnery is s class act!
Actually on watching this Frank's playing is almost Holdsworthesqe!
I remember watching this many moons ago when when I was a lad loved it bought the album vinyl ofcause and many more I brilliant guitar playing too 🤘👏👏👏
TOP **** And what a ff. great drummer.
Still one of my favourite guitarists & bands after all these years. First saw them in Liverpool University gig then later on the Liverpool Empire - every note immaculate even through such intricate creations. Total respect for them and I still play the first 3 albums to death 😍
I was at that Liverpool university gig too. Their playing was so precise, so perfect, it actually felt more like listening to a record than a live gig - which probably wasn't a great thing. Still love their music though.
Same here still playing there albums great band so underated 👍
Such talented guys. Composition, musicianship.
No more bands like this anymore just mostly crap nowadays with no talent at all and kids love them shame
How good was it bites so underated great live band so tight all great musicians made some great albums 👌
Still follow them to this day!...
@@jamesley3743 nice one 👍
I remember seeing this program on tv in around 1987 ish and I video taped it and I watched it over and over and it was on this program that I first found and heard Joe Satriani playing midnight and I instantly became a massive Joe fan and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him twice.
John Beck is the underrated songwriter here
Totally with you on that! I love the two albums they made with John Mitchell on guitar/vocals, who is no slouch on guitar himself. But it still had massive amounts of the IB sound I feel in love with as a kid. I have been gutted twice now by their breakup!
Once Around The World, an epic song.
Witnessing genius here. Saw then 3x live, one of the best bands ever 88 to 90,
Saw Francis play South Shields last night
He recreated this sequence (the bit comparing the Fender to the Squier ) onstage word for word and note for note.
For, as he said, the people who were coming to the shows and getting very upset that he wasn't playing stuff like he did "back in the 80's"." hahaha
it was genius !
great band saw them many times before they made it around the west cumbrian clubs franks hero was his brother baz.r.i.p who was one of the best guitar players i have ever seen.he gets his style from him great video.
PS thanks for posting. Makes everything good in 2021👍
So talented - deserved to have been far more successful
Correct Great live 👍
Saw Francis in California at a house concert in 2019. Fabulous night.
Freaking great, met the band after they played the rooftops gig in Glasgow on this tour....magnifico!
Back in the day, he was mister legato.. and quite terrifying! Chords, songs, singing,... and blow you out the room leads.
Frank Dunnery, wow,,,,sure, there is an army of techie shredders now but back then he was from another planet !! I can only guess Alan Holdswoth would be the source for his style ? It bites,,best band of eighties / early nineties, still play this album today, ,
Awesome mixer and man.....those shorts he's wearing......fantastically 80's!!😂😂
Hah! I see a studer a800 24 track recorder running ampex 456 grandmaster 2" tape "nice" and love this song "once around the world"!!!!!!!
if only there were programmes like this on tv instead of crap reality shows about dancing n all that
i saw this when i was a nipper/kid/youngling...Frank blew my mind, i used to have the documentary on vhs but alas it was lost to time..thanks for uploading, great stuff:]
Saw them last night in Wolvo. Awesome.
I love this song - it's a proper prog journey, great syncopation, great jazzy chords, I love the way the drums kick in unpredictably.
"Crack the Champagne, seems like 1924 down here..." :-)
I'll counter with a "Motorwaaaaayay".
@@stinky_nut_blast Willie Carson done for arson, Anyone?
Since I first saw this (when it was first aired) I've got so used to the finished piece it's pretty surreal hearing this "karaoki" version. I was going "crack the champagne, what's the year, sounds like 1924 down here" in my mind at the last part of this clip! Thanks a million Lonegroover for posting this.
Brilliant band. Looks like a great documentary too. I would have liked to have seen the Andy Summers bit too :-)
Yes,cut him off?
'Outside' Shredding way before his time
Dave Walker deserves a recording contract.
In the 90's he moved to Swansea and used to come in a shop I worked at. Was a very interesting character indeed.
Recall watching this with my old Guitar Teacher . . .
One of the classier epic tracks inspired by and with structural similarity to 'Supper's Ready',a couple of others being IQ's 'Harvest of Souls' and Marillion's 'Grendel'. I think this is my fave though, it is such a fresh approach and the influence is not immediately obvious.
For sure. That run Frank plays at 1:52 is really similar to Holdsworth's solo on Bill Bruford's 'Travels With Myself'
I remember watching this show when it was first screened - this was a great album. Far too quiet though!
Well done FRANK! All this Doc was based on the SPNAL TAP Film hehe 1:15
i couldn't do that on that one......well i could.... LOL! Francis rocks!
Yeah, I remember him saying that when I watched it on TV. I think that it was Equinox on Channel 4. Lead guitarist to the end! Be modest but then rethink and boast - and I say that as a lead guitarist. A fantastic player
I remember this!!!!
Brilliant!
I listen to the narrator and all I can think of is that Protect and Survive episode - "The air attack warning sounds like - this is the sound"
Crikey,that really is a posh recording studio..they've got Mick Fleetwood as groundsman.
Frank was incredible at 23! Forgeddaboudit x
Terrance Nutkins was the gardener at the Manor.
I always said that! haha
ha ha. the gardener is actually Fish out of Marrillion
Thought that myself ha ha ha ha 🤣🤣🤣
"I couldn't do it on that one.....well I could but....."
Very funny. A Tufnel line.
Francis is a bonefide rock axe god.
Yeah the narrator sounds like he's voicing over some war in Cambodia or something.
I have just set up It Bites Fan Club on Facebook Groups, in case anyone wants to join!
Some nice legato lines from FD. Great guitar player.
Fukken love this
....ultimately the responsibility of their sound engineer, Neil Morrisey . 😂😂
Hahaha
The engineer had stupid shorts for sure, but the album is beautifully produced.
I got Frank that guitar for £99 the Fender artist price!
Kudos :-)
It's hard to see but it looks like the SE bullet truss rod Japan model,,fantastic guitars that fetch upto £600 these days
@@gw2934 sq squier made in japan
02:57, Terry Nutkins!
Cheers Lonegroover. Better than the other
one. I think that is Noddy Holder in the garden doing the mowing! Have you posted Andy Summer's?
Frank wearing the same shirt as he had on in the Calling All The Heroes video. ;-)
Definately Noddy Holder on Lawn Mower!
Love this...great band, very talented individuals. Complex and technically challenging songs made to look and sound straightforward. Frank Dunnery was and still is an outstanding guitarist. Totally disagree with Graham White, but hey we all have our opinions.
First band I ever saw live, when I was 15. Going to see It Bites FD tonight in London, hopefully will get to hear this and have it sound this lively, rather than the studio version which has always been a bit tame compared to this rough mix (IMO, of course!)
Watched this clip so many times but it just dawned on me that the guy doing the narration sounds like the bloke telling you where to hide in case of a nuclear holocaust...a la Frankie Goes to Oblivion! Also the producer is in his pants. Only in his pants apart from a skimpy top. If you pause at 7'31", he looks like a cross between Neil Morrissey and Richard Beckinsale.
Anywhere for the full documentary?
Won’t be long till The new It Bites FD album is out…recording in Dec for. Jan 2024 release check Francis’s site
lol! pure 80s sounding
£1500 @ day in 1987!!!
LOL...he also looks -and sounds- like Ray (the gym guy) from Nuts In May !
04:35, "Or take the guitar out." NO, yu caaahnt!
Guitar and amplifier combination! LOL.
Lonegroover: You make it to the CKDCF or to the new progressive tour stuff recently??
Anyone know where I can find the whole documentary? It's a classic and I've been hunting for it for ages to no avail.
It's right here and Frank got the Squeir for seventy five quid.
BaddaBigBoom. This documentary came out around 1987 ish and I had it on video tape and I watched it constantly but sadly the tape disappeared in the depths of time and never to be seen again.
@@Rikk303 Equinox was such a brilliant doc series.
..wasn't Tubular Bells recorded here.
It's ironic that Japanese guitars used to be a joke, and now they make some of the highest quality guitars in the World, just look at the state and poor quality issues with Gibson guitars.
;~)
And Night at the Opera...
slan holdworth runs nice
Allan was born in my hometown of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. As you probably already know Allan sadly died recently. Francis Dunnery did a nice two hour tribute on his online radio show, and the podcast can be downloaded here...... podcasts.progzilla.com/francis/Francis_Dunnery_Radio_Show_-_041.mp3
Hi,
Done, although it was already there as it turned out. Search for Andy Summers 1987 or look in my videos. Cheers.
Egremonts finest👍
The Manor wasn't Shipton Manor, bought in the 70's by Richard Branson by any chance was it.??
@reoreason
What album was that? What did you do? How far from Headington is this place???
its their 3rd album, named, apropriately "Once Around the World" & for me, their best one
I watched this years ago when it was shown. I thought at the time it was Mark Knopfler mowing the lawn.
haha, Knopfler had a little bit more hair back in '87
@3:03 Ah, so THAT's what Fish did in his spare time in the 80s!
Where's the next part? I want to hear what Andy Summers has got to say! 🙂
Type in Andy Summers, Equinox 👍
Where's Dave Walker now?
Is it me, or do most of the band members look cataclysmically stoned? John Beck looks like he's on the edge of falling over. :-D
@reoreason
Dunnery told me and my guestsy that they really pissed off Branson when they were there by getting the key to his wine collection and doing some serious damage!! Strange place for Branson to set up at--Kidlington: has the little airfield but he's a Surry boy and you'd think some where near Gatwick would suit him better. DUnnery did a house concert in Oxford last year, Did you go? Although, i suppose, you are not in the area now. Keep it dark... any good??
I think this documentary was called "Twang, Bang, Kerrang" or something similar.
So ThATS who nicked Frank's guitar. It was Dave WALkER! There it is!
The full documentary is Ch4 Equinox 20 August Twang, Bang, Kerang!, 20 August 1987 czcams.com/video/ALQiYi0g0lA/video.html
The song in the video sounds epic but the actual track runs about 30bpm slower.
Edit: Open the song in Audacity and change tempo by 10%. That's more like it (however now sadly the audio quality is a bit let down). I wonder why they went with the slow tempo in the end...
@Patrick Bradley what is the track called? I watched the original screening of this in (I think) the late 80s but I've never found which track it was
Just found it's Once Around The World!
Michael Baker It’s in the video title haha! But yeah need to increase the tempo by 10% using Audacity as the actual recording is way too slow in my opinion.
Just done this and now the track sounds more like it does in the video above; you said your audio quality suffered - I'm not hearing it on mine, did you export as WAV or something else?
Anyway; good bit of advice here, and it doesn't make the track unlistenable or anything, just a little different - thanks.
Put something on you that!
Nope. I do too. In fact him and Joan Collins' sister (can't remember her name, just remember to turn her off everytime she shows her face) sound spookily alike. This strand could be the groundwork for a massive debate and census on irritating affected accents!!!
Yeah Frank was without doubt a fantastic musician...but so were/are the rest of the band.
Saw them in Glasgow last year with the new guy and it was better than I expected.
Couldn't have been too bad as I'll be going again in March.
Am I the only one who thinks that Andy Summers' mid-Atlantic accent sounds really affected?
Did the engineer walk around in his underpants all day?
The sound engineer Mark Wallace did a shit job of recording this.
I remember at the time, watching this on TV and thinking it sounded awesome and when I got the album and listened to it, it sounded like a pile of shit. You could hardly hear the guitar because it was masked by the keyboards.
The producer has responsibility for the mix on the final released version of the songs, not the sound engineer. The band themselves were responsible for much of the production work on the title track.
what a waste of time and money that band.
Did they do the soundtracks for Electric Blue videos ….?