Focus Sylvia

Ground-breaking TV music program The Old Grey Whistle Test had been on air for only a year when Focus arrived at the BBC TV studios in mid-December 1972. That week’s edition was already pretty solid – film clips of Marc Bolan and John Lennon, a live set from The Crickets – but it was the relatively unknown Dutch band who stole the show. Their scintillating performance of two instrumentals – Sylvia and Hocus Pocus – had everybody talking.

For presenter Bob Harris, Focus were ’s ‘big bang’ moment. “They were an absolute sensation,” he remarked. “We discovered that