Barry Gibb laughs with embarrassment as Bee Gees watch adorable first TV performance

9 April 2024, 12:04

Noel Edmonds showed the clip during a recorded interview with the stars in 1983.

Bee Gee brothers Barry Gibb and twins Maurice and Robin Gibb were no strangers to TV interviews, but even they couldn't predict what hosts would throw at them.

The singing trio were guests on Noel Edmonds' The Late, Late Breakfast Show in 1983 when the veteran presenter showed them a video of their first ever TV performance.

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The black and white footage showed the three brothers singing on an Australian variety show in 1960, when a towering Barry Gibb was 13 years old and his young twin brothers were aged just 10, as the cringing adult Bee Gees watched on.

Barry Gibb could be seen laughing and holding his head in his hands as the video played, and the screen then panned to all three brothers' embarrassed reactions as Maurice wiped away tears of laughter.

The moment came after the Bee Gees gave an a cappella performance of the 1950 hit 'Lollipop', before joining Noel Edmonds on a sofa for the sit-down interview.

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When Edmonds asked about their choice of song, Barry said: "That's the first song we ever sang on stage, so we thought we'd do that tonight."

The host then went on to ask them what the second song the trio ever sang on TV was, and as the brothers discussed which one, Edmonds went on to say: "You see, we found this little piece of old film from Australian television..."

The three brothers then look immediately sheepish as the audience start to laugh, before Maurice exclaims: "Oh no!"

The Bee Gees on Noel Edmonds Late Late Breakfast Show (1983)

Edmonds then goes on: "You see, no one is safe here..." as the old footage of the trio begins to play.

The screen then cuts to the reaction of the singers, as their younger selves performed an original song penned by Barry, called 'Time is Passing By'.

The three brothers cringe and laugh as the footage comes to an end, with Maurice wiping his eyes and Robin joking: "We were rehearsing the show today and nobody told us about that!"

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The TV footage from the Desmond and the Channel 9 Pins in 1960 was a monumental moment for the young brothers, after years of performances in relative obscurity.

Growing up on the Isle of Man, in 1955 Barry Gibb formed the skiffle group The Rattlesnakes, with himself on vocals and guitar, Robin and Maurice on vocals and their friends Paul Frost and Kenny Horrocks also singing.

By 1958, when the Gibbs moved to Manchester, Frost and Horrocks left the band. The brothers later changed the name to Wee Johnny Hayes and the Blue Cats.

Later that year, the Gibb family left the UK for Australia. The band soon changed its name to Bee Gees.

To earn some extra pocket money, the talented young brothers had been performing together, and after their first TV appearance, they began regularly working at resorts on the Queensland coast.

Five years later they published their first-ever album, titled The Bee Gees Sing and Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs and in 1967, their first international full-length recording, Bee Gees' 1st, was released.

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The Bee Gee brothers went on to become one of the most successful acts of all time, with a plethora of number one hits, including film soundtracks for Grease and Saturday Night Fever and Barry Gibb writing some of the most famous songs in the world including Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers' 'Islands in the Stream', Diana Ross' 'Chain Reaction' and Barbra Streisand's 'Woman in Love'

The Bee Gees - Time Is Passing By (1960)

The Bee Gees' final live recorded performance took place in 2001 The Gibb brothers sang 'You Should Be Dancing' on June 17 at the Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles.

But Bee Gees' final show actually came eight months later on February 23, 2002 at the Love and Hope Ball in Miami, but there is no video of the trio's private last performance.

At the last show, Barry and Maurice played 'Words' and classic songs by the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, and The Everly Brothers, before Robin joined them to perform other Bee Gees hits.

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Maurice passed away in 2003 at the age of 53, due to complications of a twisted intestine and it wasn't until 2006 that Barry and Robin performed live together again, before Robin sadly died from cancer in 2012 at the age of 62.

Barry Gibb has since spoken about his sadness of losing all of his brothers, and in an interview featured on the Australian show Sunday Night in 2012, just a few months after Robin's death, Barry said: "I’m the last man standing. I’ll never be able to understand that as I’m the eldest."

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"Nobody ever really knows what the three of us felt about each other," he added. "Only the three of us knew.

"It was such a unifying thing, the three of us became one person. We all had the same dream. That's what I miss more than anything else."

From 2012 to 2014 Barry Gibb went on his first tour without his brothers, but the memories of Robin and Maurice were never far away.

The Mythology tour saw Barry keep it in the family by inviting his son Stephen Gibb and Maurice Gibb's daughter Samantha, – both musicians in their own rights – to join him on tour, resulting in a particularly emotional rendition of the Bee Gees classic, 'Stayin' Alive'.