A JOURNEY into the musical story of the Bay City Rollers is taking place at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester this week.

Les McKeown, lead singer with the original teen heart throbs, along with his backing group, the Legendary Bay City Rollers, will be performing Rollermania, telling the story of how five ordinary guys from Edinburgh became a worldwide pop sensation.

Les is still writing songs today and for the last eight months has been helped out by Colchester songwriter Joe Murphy, one third of popular Essex punk pop trio, Koopa.

Les explains: “He’s been helping us with some background music for our live shows. I also sent him two new songs which he is re-mixing for me. It’s been working really well.”

Speaking about the show, Les says: “I must admit I was getting a little jaded with just doing the Rollers’ songs, so we came up with this idea of doing something a little different.”

As well as all the Rollers’ hits, such as Bye Bye Baby, Summer Love Sensation and Shang A Lang, Les and his band will perform some of the songs that influenced the original band.

Les adds: “I like to mix it up. We often change the show from night to night, playing songs the band never released and doing ones before the group made it big.”

Between 1974 and 1976, the Rollers’ notched up nine UK top ten hits, including two number ones. Their first two albums, Rollin and Once Upon A Star, stayed on the album charts for a total of 99 weeks. Bye Bye Baby, the Rollers first number one, was the UK’s biggest selling single of 1975.

Les says: “What you have to remember is we were these girls’ first love, their first big crush. People never forget that.”