How Bonnie Tyler totally eclipsed RocKwiz

EXCLUSIVE: When Bonnie Tyler appeared on the Countdown special for 111 Hits many viewers derided her for miming her big hit, Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Directly after the shoot she was due to appear at a recording of RocKwiz for SBS, but that wasn’t about to happen. Several hours earlier at around midday she had apologised to producers cancelling on doctor’s orders. Tyler had lost her voice.

That explains the Countdown issue a little more. She went ahead with the appearance but wasn’t required to vocalise.

Meanwhile, RocKwiz producers were thrown into quite a spin.

As the RocKwiz team tells TV Tonight, it was quite a scramble to find a substitute (some spoilers).

“After months of planning around that specific date, it was a great shame as we were all rather looking forward to being Totally Eclipsed!,” says RocKwiz.

“A quick team chat between producers and band developed a plan B, C and D and moments later calls were being made from all corners of the Gershwin Room as potential replacements were contacted. A couple of unavailables and a few unreturned messages later, and before we lost Julia to her radio shift, we started to rehearse the two episodes, one of which suddenly had a very large hole in it. It was about then that someone suggested we should be making a documentary about what was unfolding, but we were all too busy trying to solve a problem like Ms Tyler to do anything about that.

“So, after rehearsals had finished at about 2.00pm we were still looking for someone to take Bonnie’s place for the recording due to start about 8.30pm. Our Rock Star Wrangler, who looks after our guest artists from the moment they get to the Espy until they leave, had just arrived in advance of the 3pm music rehearsals and we all started to think again about who else might be available. Moments later, and at almost exactly the same time, Pete Luscombe, Ken Connor, and Peter Bain-Hogg all turned and looked at the aforementioned Rockstar Wrangler with the same thought. The answer was right in front of us. ‘Eve, you’re on!’

“Eve von Bibra was about to stop wrangling for the day and get in touch with her inner rock star. Years in the 80’s as a Chantoozie, a role she reprised more recently for the Countdown Spectacular live tours and her fabulous performance as Kenny’s love interest in the highly successful comedy film and TV series meant that she had the credibility and profile to be on the show, so at about 3pm we stopped looking for another Rock Star and started looking for another Rock Star Wrangler!

“Eve didn’t think we were serious at first but eventually realised that we were and it rapidly became all about Eve. What was she going to sing? What was her MasterBlaster topic going to be? And most importantly, what was she going to wear?

“Meanwhile, a quick search of the Chantoozies back catalogue turned up a song that was familiar to most and a quick trip to the iTunes store had it downloaded, burnt to a disc and replayed through the foldback for the band to learn. Eve had picked her Master Blaster subject so our friend Mr Google was employed for research and Ken and Peter started writing Eve’s Who Can It Be Now introduction…

“The person affected the most in all this was Mess Hall singer, Jed Kurzel, who had woken that morning with the one though “OK, tonight, I sing with Bonnie Tyler!” was meant to be singing with Bonnie but fortunately Jed is one of those people some would call “the nicest guy in show biz” and he took it all in his stride, completely understanding our situation and ready to go with the flow and accept whatever was going to happen. As it turned out, it was fine, and the only real drama on the night for Jed was something to do with Tom Waits and his nocturnal emissions, but that’s another story too!”

RocKwiz airs 9:20pm Saturday on SBS.