Wednesday, August 26, 2015

No-One Circles the Wagons Like Ken Nelson & Jim Long

Song - Powersurge
Artist(s) - Ken Nelson, Jim Long
Released - 1985
Primetime Usage - 1987, 1990-91, 1993-94, 1998-05
Contained on - FirstCom UT104 (Powersurge), FirstCom A1 (Sports)
Featured Highlight - Bills @ Colts, 1998


On NFL Primetime, Chris Berman's Buffalo Bills fandom was not exactly a well-kept secret.  His love for those Niagara NFLers was best displayed in the coining of his famous line, "No-One Circles the Wagons Like the Buffalo Bills!," in the 1990s.  This catchprase became nearly as synonymous with Berman as his prodigious use of player nicknames throughout highlights and he still uses it often on ESPN to this day.  Another theme that became synonymous with Buffalo Bills highlights was the background song, "Powersurge."  Powersurge, composed by FirstCom founder (and then owner) Jim Long and current FirstCom executive Ken Nelson, provides an entertaining balance of '80s guitar rock and tight brass that works perfectly for football highlights.  Beginning early in Buffalo's Doug Flutie love-affair era in the late-'90s/early-2000s, virtually every highlight involving the Bills on NFL Primetime utilized this track.  In fact, aside from maybe "San Diego Super Chargers," I'm not sure there's another song that is more identified with an NFL team than this one.

One other unique note about Powersurge:  it's the only music track in the history of NFL Primetime that was used in both its first season (1987), and its last (regular) season (2005).

I don't know of a completely legal source to cleanly stream this song on the web at present.  If you're still interested in obtaining it, however, there's a decent chance you can find one of the above albums on eBay (that's how I got FC-A1 Sports).  I believe FC-UT104 is an LP and not a CD, though, so keep that in mind.  There also exists a remix of this song, entitled "Halftime Highlights Remix," that is streamable on FirstCom here.

The NFL Primetime highlight featured below was one of Doug Flutie's first starts for the Bills in 1998.  This was also Flutie's first year back in the U.S. after a moderate stint in the CFL.  Here he's up against a long-forgotten rookie by the name of Peyton Manning…



3 comments:

  1. FirstCom A1 (Sports) got put on YouTube and Spotify very recently, for some reason. Here's the YT link for Powersurge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3jauhZWhn4

    Man I really hope the other early FirstCom Action Series albums become streamable soon.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for finding that. It appears that it's actually Ken Nelson posting it… or someone using his name for some reason.

      The early FirstCom Action albums (except A-19 & A-42) are available here: https://www.nslibrary.nichion.co.jp/albums?page=2&cat_search=FC-A. I'm really not sure how legally kosher that site is, but I'm gonna update some of my posts to link to them.

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    2. It's actually a "Topic" channel, which means it's an automatic posting. The other songs are on YouTube as well, and I found the album on Spotify too.

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