A music fan who helped The Wonder Stuff avoid performing on Top Of The Pops by offering a lift to the band's singer in his mother's car is to be reunited with the star.
Mark Galbraith, then 17, had gone to see the indie band in Carlisle in March 1994 with his friends. After the gig, they were approached by the band's singer Miles Hunt to ask if any of them could drive him to a hotel to help him disappear and avoid performing on the TV show.
Escape from the gig
The band had been promised a day off before their manager and label called and insisted they fly to London to perform on the chart show. Galbraith told Hunt he could not drive, but that his mum was on the way to pick him and his friends up and that she would give him a lift.
Hunt told the Press Association: "We'd been invited on to Top Of The Pops, and I said, 'Yeah, I'm not going', and he said, 'You don't have a choice in this', and I'm like, 'Watch me, I ain't going'.
"So I was adamant about it, so I had a little chat with the rest of the band, and I said, 'Do any of you want to go down to London?', it was probably like either a drive through the night or be flown down the following morning.
"'Do any of you want to do this over having a day off in Carlisle?' And they were like, 'Nobody wants to do it'. I said, 'OK, then I'm going to go missing, I'm not going to tell any of you where I'm going, so our manager can't shout at you'.
"I left the gig, so I'd been on stage like 10 minutes prior, I just grabbed my bag, ran out of the gig at the Carlisle Sands Centre, and then there were these four lads standing on the corner who'd been in the audience.
"And I just said, 'Lads, any of you got a car? I need a lift into town', and then Mark said, 'No, but my mum's coming to pick us up in a minute', and sure enough, it seemed like seconds, mum pulled up in the Volvo."
Banned from the show
Hunt added that he ended up staying at the hotel for 48 hours and the band dodged Top Of The Pops and had their day off, but were subsequently banned from the programme as a result of their no-show.
He said he wanted to avoid the show as he had disliked being asked to mime on it in The Wonder Stuff's previous six appearances, and also said that it never helped the band with sales as it had other groups.
Speaking about the moment they picked Hunt up, Galbraith said: "It was a bit surprising for us, I think my first worry was like, 'How the hell are we going to get him in the car?'
"There was the four of us there already… and we were like, 'What do we do now? Where can we go?'
"And I've heard a couple of conflicting stories about who went where on that night, but we did all manage to squeeze in the car with the six of us in there to get to the hotel.
"My mum could have easily have said, 'No, you need to find a taxi or whatever', she was quite accommodating, and I think was good for us at the time as well.
"It was certainly a great story to have, and it's one that we've dined out on over the years as well."
Galbraith said his mum was shocked that a band would not want to appear on the show, while some of his friends did not believe him, until the story of the band avoiding the show appeared in the news.
Reunion and tour
Now, the pair will reunite for a drink ahead of the first gig of The Wonder Stuff's 40th anniversary tour on Thursday in Newcastle.
The tour will end with a gig in Birmingham on December 9, with stops planned at London's Brixton Academy, Liverpool's Olympia and Manchester's O2 Victoria Warehouse, with tickets on sale now from the band's website.
