SYLVIA RAYE 'BANDSTAND FEELS LIKE YESTERDAY!'

THE LAST 50 YEARS HAVE GONE BY IN A FLASH!

- Glen Williams

From 1958 to 1972, there was one show Aussie teens were obsessed with. Even mums and dads couldn't resist tapping their feet in time!

Indeed, a Saturday night couldn't begin without first watching Bandstand. A bespectacled Brian Henderson would appear, the music would start and suddenly everything was groovy, and everyone was dancing.

Fifty years after the show ended following a 14-year run, it's memories like these that entertainer and Bandstand regular, Sylvia Raye, holds dear. After all, Bandstand was the show that made Sylvia and the likes of Col Joye, Normie Rowe, Little Pattie, Billy Thorpe, Judy Stone, Dinah Lee, the Bee Gees, and Helen Reddy (just to name a few) household names.

The day New Idea comes calling to Sylvia's classic 1970s pad, nestled in Sydney's southern suburbs, we are instantly thrown into a time warp.

The house, with its sunken playpen and bar once used for a salacious Penthouse photo shoot, and the groovy kitchen with its iconic Florence Broadhurst wallpaper, is the ultimate time capsule.

There to greet us is Sylvia, wearing the same costume she wore for her very first Bandstand performance singing the Dusty Springfield classic, All I See Is You'. Suddenly, it's 1966 all over again!

"You know, sometimes it feels that Bandstand was a long time ago," she says with nostalgic tears brimming in her "Then I see the film clips on YouTube and it seems just like yesterday. I can't believe I still fit into this costume..