Last night one of the songs we rehearsed was “Paris By Air” which was a hit single for the Tygers of Pan Tang and also on the top 20 album “The Cage”. The signature guitar intro is gone because we’re doing a new arrangement in a different key to work for Lorraine Crosby. Now not many people may know but the song was written originally for a girl – Toni Haliday (Curve). However, that’s another story and there are many stories around that song.

The one I’ll tell you today is this: About a year ago Guido Russo posted a picture on Facebook and said the following:

“I was near Hamburg, Tygers Of Pan Tang were performing their show. I took this picture while the band was playing a beautiful song called Paris By Air. The audience goes crazy but all of a sudden my mind goes to Steve Thompson, the man who wrote this song so many years ago. Many thanks, Steve!”

Now, I happened to be in Hamburg at roughly the same time so I wondered if perhaps I’d been in the same City at the time my song was being performed. I checked my diary and found that at the time the Tygers were ON stage in Germany I was actually UNDER a stage in Stockton On Tees setting up for the Fringe Festival.