Rare footage of David Bowie in his debut TV appearance has been recovered by BBC

David Bowie's first TV appearance, the one that was even before 'Top of the Pops', has resurfaced thanks to the folks in BBC2. People often don't recall that the 'Starman' debuted his performance in 1972 on ITV 's Lift Off with Ayshea as Ziggy Stardust.

Bowie's performance of the song "Starman" on Top of the Pops is often considered the watershed moment in the history of rock music. Dressed in a jumpsuit and with an arm around guitarist Mick Ronson, the star left the audience in a state of shock that ushered in an era of glamour and androgyny.

Recently, as part of BBC2's forthcoming documentary 'Finding Fame', an archivist uncovered the footage from a fan's home video recording that is being "baked" right now to restore the footage.

"For fans, it is something of a Holy Grail," producer and director Francis Whately told The Radio Times (via the BBC). Whatley claims that if it is recovered properly and played again, then fans "would fall apart. It will be a real coup if it comes off," he said.

Until now, the prized footage had been lost to the annals time because Granada TV had accidentally wiped away the 'Lift Off' catalogue when the tapes were sent for digitization.

In the radio show, host of 'Lift Off' Ayshea Brough explained in detail to Record Collector Magazine, what exactly had happened. It all started when the digitisation of all the tapes was given ta a guy. There were 38 shows a year, from Discotheque to Lift off. Now, what happened was something of a disaster -- instead of transferring the tapes the guy had accidentally wiped away all the shows, and that included David Bowie's performance too.

'David Bowie: Finding Fame' will be the final in the trilogy of the documentary about the pop star by Francis Whatley.

The 90- minute programmer promises to feature previously unreleased songs of Bowie along with archived footage.