HUNDREDS of live recordings of some of the biggest bands in the past 20 years in rock and pop have been discovered in the vaults of a Scottish radio station and are now to be released for the first time.
Tapes of U2, Rod Stewart, Big Country, and Simple Minds are among more than 600 recordings that have been unearthed by Radio Clyde.
The tapes - including live concerts at Glasgow venues - are now to be released by the Universal record label after it signed a deal with Scottish Radio Holdings, the owners of Radio Clyde.
The archive tapes were found after Richard Findlay, chief executive of the station, asked what had happened to hundreds of recordings which Clyde made in the 1970s and 1980s.
They had survived when the station moved from Glasgow to Clydebank 15 years ago. The series of recordings is believed to be Britain's largest such collection outside the BBC.
Like the BBC, SRH has decided to ''license out'' the production of the records to Universal because a number of the acts are now on its payroll.
The SRH archive includes material from now-classic bands Roxy Music, Elvis Costello, Madness, Thin Lizzy and Simple Minds.
Mr Findlay, the chief executive of SRH, said: ''I had been thinking of this last year but around Christmas this year we had another look for what we could find.
''They are mainly recordings of live concerts, including a really good one of Rod Stewart at Ibrox, with the crowd singing along.
''We own the rights to the recordings. We have to be careful because the artists have rights too and that is why we are going through Universal.''
Of the more than 800 tapes, 600 have been catalogued and transferred to digital discs.
Only a handful of the tapes had deteriorated and Mr Findlay admitted there was an element of luck in their survival.
''They could easily have been lost over the years, that's the fascinating thing. For fans of the bands these will be fantastic, because these have not been heard for years, and I am sure the artists will be interested as well.''
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