Joe Jackson - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: Rock Goes to College, Hatfield Polytechnic, Hatfield, Britain, 11-29-1979

As part of my big BBC project, it's time to see what Joe Jackson has done for the BBC. It hasn't been a priority for me because there already is the official album "At the BBC," which has lots of songs from three BBC concerts. But that album is flawed because it's missed a lot.

For this first volume, I had to deal with the fact that Jackson performed two concerts for the BBC within two weeks of each other in late 1979. One was for the TV show "Rock Goes to College" and the other one was for the radio show "In Concert." As you'd suspect with the shows being so close to each other in time, the set lists are very similar. I felt there would be too much repetition to post both in full here, especially because I've already posted a late 1979 concert from him. So I've posted all the songs from the "Rock Goes to College" show in Hatfield, Britain, and only the songs from the "In Concert" show in Portsmouth, Britain, that weren't played at the Hatfield show.

Most of the Hatfield show was included on the "At the BBC" album, but not all. Two songs, "Look Sharp" and "Baby Stick Around," were not included. I stuck them at the end since I don't know the correct song order for the concert and I didn't see a good spot to slip them in. Chances are though they weren't at the end, since he usually didn't end his concerts with those songs at that time.

That leaves the songs from the other concert, at Portsmouth. Those are tracks 14 to 18. They're all unreleased. He wasn't likely to end a concert with the song "Pretty Boys," but it's a popular song, so it's a good one to end on.

The sound quality is generally excellent. The two unreleased Hatfield show songs probably sound less good than the rest.

This album is an hour and two minutes long. The Hatfield portion is 46 minutes long.

01 talk (Joe Jackson)
02 Sunday Papers (Joe Jackson)
03 One More Time (Joe Jackson)
04 Friday (Joe Jackson)
05 It's Different for Girls (Joe Jackson)
06 Don't Wanna Be like That (Joe Jackson)
07 Happy Loving Couples (Joe Jackson)
08 I'm the Man (Joe Jackson)
09 Got the Time (Joe Jackson)
10 Is She Really Going Out with Him (Joe Jackson)
11 Come On (Joe Jackson)
12 Look Sharp (Joe Jackson)
13 Baby Stick Around (Joe Jackson)
14 talk (Joe Jackson)
15 Geraldine and John (Joe Jackson)
16 Kinda Kute (Joe Jackson)
17 The Harder They Come (Joe Jackson)
18 Pretty Boys (Joe Jackson)

The download link has been removed due to copyright issues.

The cover photo is from an unknown concert in 1979. But one can tell from the way that he's holding up a newspaper that it was most likely taken during the performance of the song "Sunday Papers."