The Bay City Rollers are a Scottish pop rock group known for their worldwide teen idol popularity as a boy band in the 1970s.

One of many 70s acts heralded as the "biggest group since the Beatles",[4] they were called the "tartan teen sensations from Edinburgh", and sold 5 million albums.

Despite their international prominence during the 1970s and early 1980s, the Bay City Rollers never made the transition from boy band, as their members aged, and their career was marked by financial difficulties and mismanagement.

The current line-up (since 2018) includes original guitarist Stuart "Woody" Wood, singer Ian Thomson, bassist Mikey Smith, keyboardist/singer John McLaughlin and drummer Jamie McGrory.

[15] The Saxons played occasional dance hall concerts while the band members completed their schooling or worked during the day (Alan apprenticed as a plumber).

[14] While taking a technical class at Napier College, Alan met fellow plumbing student Gregory Ellison, who joined the Saxons on electric guitar, with Pettigrew shifting to keyboards.

Gregory's older brother Mike joined as a second lead singer, allowing more complex harmonies, especially useful for the Motown songs they liked to perform.

By the end of 1973, Clark had become disillusioned with the band's musical direction and decided to leave just when his recording of "Remember (Sha-La-La-La)" climbed the chart to No.

A couple of months later, in early 1974, what became known as the classic line-up[17] was completed; guitarist John Devine was replaced by Stuart "Woody" Wood.

16-year-old Stuart Wood completed the "classic five" line-up in February 1974, a week after the band had debuted the "Remember" single on Top of the Pops.

UA issued the record as by the Tartan Horde,[20] which was the name given to Rollers fans in England, and it became a substantial hit in Japan.

[17] The Rollers gave the track their American debut, via a satellite-link performance on Saturday Night Live, with Howard Cosell.

On October 23, 1976 they appeared on the long-running Australian music TV show Countdown, a date which happened to coincide with a total eclipse of the sun.

The show's director Ted Emery recalled:[24] (there)... were thousands of kids done up in tartan pants that didn't reach the top of their shoes, constantly bashing on the plexiglas doors.

[17] With Mitchell, the group released an album titled Dedication (1976), and hit the chart with a cover version of the Dusty Springfield song "I Only Want to Be with You. "

They settled on David Bowie's producer, Harry Maslin, and in August 1977 released It's a Game as a four-piece group, comprising McKeown, Wood, Faulkner and Derek Longmuir.

On the tour, they covered "It's a Game", an unsuccessful 1973 single by String Driven Thing, to give them their final UK Top 20 hit (No.

At the end of 1978, the band had split with McKeown, then fired manager Tam Paton shortly after, and decided to continue in a more new wave, rock-oriented sound.

[4] During the late 2000s, Ian Mitchell led his own Bay City Rollers band, which included lead vocalist Kyle Vincent.

[34] In March 2007, six former members of the group (Faure plus the "classic line-up") announced a lawsuit against Arista Records in hopes of claiming what they described as "tens of millions of dollars" of unpaid royalties.

[35][36] In September 2010, Clark, Ian Mitchell and Pat McGlynn filed a complaint in the courts in the United States against the six members (Faure plus the "classic line-up") over being excluded from the case against Arista records.

In 2013, a judge in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the three due to the statute of frauds, which establishes that certain agreements must be in writing under certain conditions, and the appellate judge's ruling stated: "A claim for unjust enrichment must be based on the value of plaintiffs' contribution to the joint effort of the band at the time it made the relevant records, not on the income stream resulting from a revival over thirty years later.

"[37] In March 2011, a New York judge determined that the Bay City Rollers could move forward with their four-year-old lawsuit against Arista Records.

The statute limits plaintiffs from recovering damages post six years in contract disputes, which therefore would negate the Rollers' claims for royalties incurred before 2001.

However, because Arista had continued to promise the Bay City Rollers their royalties in writing, the judge ruled that the statute was not applicable.

Arista Records' parent company Sony Music is believed to have paid $3.5 million, with each band member receiving £70,000.

[39] On 22 September 2015, the Bay City Rollers, including McKeown, Wood, and Alan Longmuir, announced they were reforming and would play a show at the Glasgow Barrowlands on 20 December.

On 27 February 2018, Stuart 'Woody' Wood announced that a "new generation" Bay City Rollers would be performing in Tokyo, Japan in June of the same year.

[47] His autobiography I Ran with the Gang: My Life in and Out of The Bay City Rollers was published posthumously in November 2018; the book was written with Martin Knight.

[52] For the period between 9 March and 10 December 2023, however, a total of 11 concerts and appearances at festivals were planned again with the line-up of Ian Thomson, Stuart 'Woody' Wood, Mikey Smith and Jamie McGrory, nine of them in the UK and one each in Denmark and Germany.