The tier announcement became a game show
England’s new post-lockdown tiers had been announced.
The news was serious.
Scott and Chris decided that did not mean the delivery had to be miserable.
They found listeners who had deliberately avoided the news so Radio 1 could reveal their tier live.
Nadia in Peterborough hoped for Tier 1.
Scott built the tension.
She was in Tier 2.
The reaction was a complicated mixture of relief and disappointment.
Another listener in Cornwall received the much more exciting news that she was in Tier 1.
Somebody elsewhere discovered they were in Tier 3 and had to work out what, exactly, there was to celebrate about being told to stay in.
What counted as a substantial meal?
The tier rules immediately produced another national debate.
In some areas, pubs could serve alcohol only alongside a substantial meal.
Scott wanted to know what qualified.
A plate of chips?
Apparently not.
A bowl of peas?
Definitely not.
Garlic bread?
Debatable, but probably not enough.
Somebody had even produced a beer called *Substantial Meal*, which Scott doubted would convince anybody enforcing the rule.
The phrase became one of those pieces of pandemic language everybody suddenly had to understand.
Why was The Weeknd upset? Wrong answers only
The Weeknd had received no Grammy nominations and was publicly unhappy about it.
The show supplied the correct reason quickly.
Then it asked listeners for Wrong Answers Only.
Maybe Haribo advent calendars had sold out.
Maybe the 1980s had phoned and asked for his music back.
Maybe he had visited France and everybody kept calling him “Le Weeknd”.
Maybe his phone kept autocorrecting ordinary references to the weekend into his stage name.
Or perhaps he had simply discovered his area was Tier 3.
The wrong answers became more important than the real story within minutes.
Half-and-half Bangers threatened the entire point of Bangers
Chris had introduced an idea inspired by restaurants which let customers combine two pasta dishes.
What if a Bangers caller could not choose between Scott and Chris?
Play half of each song.
Scott immediately objected.
The entire feature was based on choosing one.
Chris nevertheless wanted to test the format.
A proposed mix between B.o.B and Blink-182 demonstrated exactly why Scott was sceptical.
The transition technically worked.
Whether anybody actually wanted it was another question.
Glass Animals faced their own Live Lounge
Dave Bayley joined immediately after Glass Animals performed.
Like many artists before him, he admitted the Live Lounge made him more nervous than a normal gig.
At a concert, a singer can point the microphone at the crowd and let thousands of people cover a forgotten line.
In the Live Lounge there was nowhere to hide.
That remained true even for experienced performers.
Scott and Chris made Dave listen back and review the performance while the adrenaline was still fresh.
The band had successfully survived the one-take pressure.
Dave still heard every tiny thing he might have done differently.
COMMENTS