On the radio, when you gotta go, you gotta go

Observation from Peter Saxon – 

During most weeks, as sure as night follows day, Luke Grant Overnight follows John Stanley at midnight on 2GB. Except last night, when Luke had planned to take the night off.

No worries, GB would take a feed of Tony Moclair’s Australia Overnight from its “partner” station 3AW in Melbourne.

The News came, as expected, on the stroke of midnight while John Stanley routinely packed up after a hard day’s night to go home. He was about to exit the studio just as the News finished and to his surprise, there was dead air – and plenty of it.

Like any dedicated “jock,” Stanley stayed put and quickly put a couple of songs to air while the tech tried to figure out what was wrong with the Melbourne feed. All the while, John Stanley seemed more and more desperate to leave as he told listeners he was searching for MacArthur Park – which to any old jock (like me) who’s been stuck in a studio for a long shift can only mean one thing.

In a situation where every second counts, the first version of the Jimmy Webb classic that came to hand was Donna Summer’s, which at just under 4 minutes, clearly wasn’t going to be long enough to do the job. Stanley would need the full 7:30 of the Richard Harris version to adequately serve his needs.

Then, suddenly sweet relief… The dulcet tones of Tony Moclair burst through the pipeline from Melbourne.

Disaster averted, John found just the song by which to segue into Australia Overnight as he ran out the door: I Wanna Go Home by Michael Bublé.

Tags: | |