It's 1979 and hundreds of music fans queue at Newcastle's HMV Shop to meet their favourite band

This was the scene on Newcastle’s main shopping thoroughfare, Northumberland Street, in May 1979 as hundreds of music fans - mainly of the teenage male variety - flocked to the HMV record store.

American punk band, The Dickies, in the midst of a UK tour, were in town to play a sold-out show at the Mayfair ballroom, and were hosting an autograph-signing session at HMV during their visit to Newcastle. For The Dickies, this was the year when they enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame.

Their 100-mile-an-hour power-punk version of Banana Splits - the theme tune of the popular American TV children’s show of the same name - had peaked at a respectable number 7 in the UK singles chart.

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Similar, high-speed punk treatments of songs such as Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, the Moody Blues’ Nights In White Satin, and the Christmas carol Silent Night yielded only modest success as singles releases in 1979, after which The Dickies would not trouble the charts again - although a version of the band, hailing from the San Fernando Valley in California, is still in existence today.

When The Dickies stepped out at the iconic Mayfair venue on May 24, Banana Splits was still riding high in the top 20. It was a time when the singles charts were an eclectic mix of pop, rock, punk, new wave and disco sounds.

Elsewhere in the chart that week you could find Sunday Girl by Blondie, Earth Wind and Fire with Boogie Wonderland, The Undertones with Jimmy Jimmy, Parisienne Walkways by Gary Moore, and Tubeway Army with Are Friends Electric?

As for HMV, over the course of nearly four decades, there was a store at three different locations on Northumberland Street. In 1975, a small EMI Records and Tapes shop opened in the new Pearl Assurance House on the junction between Northumberland Street and New Bridge Street. Within a few months the store changed its name to HMV and adopted the famous dog and gramophone logo.

A move up the street to larger premises in the early 1980s allowed HMV more floor space, greater footfall and the ability to attract some big name stars. Simple Minds made a personal appearance there and drew such a crowd that the whole of Northumberland Street had to be closed off.

The store went one better in 1992, starring in the music video for Take That’s 1992 hit Satisfied. The site is currently occupied by Superdrug.

The brand was on the move again in 1996. After a midnight opening, it began operating from bigger-still premises at 15-21 Northumberland Street - the site of the famous Callers department store, which had burned down in 1969. Special guests at the opening party included a promising up-and-coming local act called Ant and Dec.

Then, on July 31, 2014, HMV opened for business at its current store in Eldon Square, ending a near 40-year residency at various addresses on Northumberland Street. The street’s first HMV Shop, where The Dickies stopped off to sign autographs in 1979, is today home to another American import - a Five Guys burger restaurant.