Album: Lights In The Night
Release date: 1980
Recorded: Albert Studios, Sydney, Australia.
Origin: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Flash and the Pan were an Australian new wave musical group (essentially an ongoing studio project) formed in 1976 by Harry Vanda and George Young, both former members of the Easybeats, who formed a production and songwriting team known as Vanda & Young. The group's first chart success was their 1976 debut single, "Hey, St. Peter", which reached number five in the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart. The next single, "Down Among the Dead Men", peaked at number four in Australia in 1978. For international release, it was re-titled "And the Band Played On".

The eponymous debut album followed in December 1978, featuring the track "Walking in the Rain", originally the B-side to "Hey St. Peter". The song was later covered by Grace Jones, and released as the last single from her 1981 album Nightclubbing. Her version was most successful in New Zealand, reaching number 34. Flash and the Pan's second album, Lights in the Night, released in early 1980, peaked at No. 1 on the Swedish Albums Chart. "Waiting for a Train", the lead single from their third album, Headlines, reached number seven on the UK Singles Chart in 1983.

Flash and the Pan was formed by Harry Vanda and George Young in mid-1976 in Sydney, Australia. It was initially a studio-only pop rock band, with both members on guitar, keyboards and vocals. The duo had been the key creative members of the Easybeats, and subsequently worked, both in Australia and in the United Kingdom (UK), as the songwriting and producing team, Vanda & Young.[1][3] From mid-1973, they were A&R agents for Albert Productions, and its in-house producers at Albert Studios in Sydney.

Flash and the Pan's debut single, "Hey, St. Peter", which they had co-written and co-produced, was issued in September 1976 on Albert Productions "as an engaging diversion from the real job of record production for other artists." It peaked at No. 5 on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart in February 1977. Australian musicologist Ian McFarlane felt "[t]he music was based around an accessible, yet inventive synthesiser-based pop rock sound with an emphasis on George's spoken-word vocals and shouted chorus."

Harry Vanda - producer, guitar, vocals
George Young - producer, synthesizer, lead vocals
Les Karski - bass
Warren Morgan - piano
Ray Arnott - drums

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