Short-lived power pop band The Motors enjoyed their biggest hit in the summer of 1978 with Airport, which reached No.4 in the singles chart.

Listening to this nearly half a century after its release, it seems strange that The Motors were regarded as a New Wave band. Not least because half the band were survivors of the pre-punk favourites Ducks Deluxe.

After the revolution of punk mutated into the New Wave, where commercialism was no longer seen as ‘selling out’, the end of the Seventies saw a resurgence of pop in the shape of power pop.

The Motors were never part of the revolution that brought the Pistols and Clash to fame, but they were part of the evolution that followed in their wake.

Comparatively ancient pub rockers Nick Garvey and Andy McMaster teamed up with singer/guitarist Bram Tchaikovsky and drummer Ricky Slaughter to form The Motors in 1977.

I think I saw their first ever gig together at The Marquee in March that year, just before they signed to Virgin and enjoyed a hit single with the driving power pop of Dancing The Night Away.

Within a year they had doused the fire of those New Wave guitars and dialled up the keyboard melodies and waves of synth for their second album Approved By The Motors.

They struck gold with this song, Airport, when it reached No.4, followed by another catchy hit, Forget About You. But by August ’78 they had split up, after a final performance at the Reading Rock Festival.

Trivia fact: after leaving Ducks Deluxe in 1975, Garvey and Slaughter first formed a band called The Snakes whose singer was Robert Gotobed (aka Robert Grey) – soon to switch to drums and form the post-punk legends Wire.