FOLLOWING the death of legendary singer Les McKeown, The News & Star has been looking back at some of the occasions The Bay City Rollers rocked Cumbria.
Back in 2012, the band waved Bye Bye Baby to Whitehaven as part of Whitehaven Festival’s Best of the Seventies night.
The Rollers, with Les as the charismatic frontman, thrilled the audience and Les vowed to return to the town - and he did later that year.
2013 Whitehaven Festival - Sunday. pic MIKE McKENZIE 21st June Bay City Rollers in action. pic Mike McKenzie 50049893W029.JPG
The band performed once more later that year with the Bay City Rollers Story, this time at Whitehaven Civic Hall.
They clearly enjoyed themselves, because they came back for more at 2013’s incarnation of the Whitehaven Festival, sharing the stage with the likes of McFly.
Speaking at the time, Gerard Richardson, the chief executive of Whitehaven Festival Company, said: “The seventies bands were also fantastic, and to see the whole crowd waving in unison along to the Bay City Rollers’ Bye Bye Baby was a real highlight for me.”
Our sister paper The Whitehaven News reported at the time that the band had crowds “eating out of their hands.”
Whitehaven festival 2013 Bay City Rollers on stage on Sunday June 23rd 2013 at the Whitehaven festival .pic John Story 50049987W021.jpg
The band, performing as Les McKeown’s Bay City Rollers, had been due to perform at the Sands Centre in Carlisle in November as part of their comeback tour.
The gig, scheduled for November 28, promised to be a “unique voyage back to the 1970s.”
They also performed at the same venue in 2015 as part of a Big Pink Breast Cancer fundraiser back in 2015, organised by Cumbrian cancer survivor and radio presenter Val Armstrong.
Les McKeown and the Bay City Rollers performing at the Think Pink charity night at The Sands Centre in Carlisle : 26th April 2015 JONATHAN BECKER 50076199F021.JPG
In a tribute posted on social media, she said: “Sleep well lovely man. I had a crush on him when I was a teenager.
“If I’d known then that I would go on to meet him and have his number in my phone I would have fainted. A kind man who even sent me flowers when my Mum had died. So thoughtful.”
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